I miss buying school supplies. I miss new pens and the crackle of loose leaf and the flexibility of erasers (the old pink ones, not the white ones). September is and always has been a new beginning. More than January, this time of year represents new challenges, bunkering down and getting focused on the next new things to learn and accomplish.
For the past few years since I graduated this feeling has been lived out in my children’s new school beginnings and somewhat my own, with teaching the past two years. But this year is different.
This year is full of new beginnings in a very big way. This September is more new and less known than any I’ve had for the past decade. For the first time in 15 years My husband and I aren’t gearing up for the new Youth Ministry year. We’re starting new ministries (and let me tell you, it’s a good way of keeping your marriage fresh to step out of the ministry focus you’ve shared since you started dating). I’m not teaching and the horizon is filled with the tentative and exciting things.
But it’s good. Because I realize that I’m learning different things. I learning to trust God more. I’m learning to allow myself to be stretched in who I listen to and how God’s wisdom comes to me from other people in new ways. I’m learning to be brave emotionally, spiritually, and yes, physically. I’m seeking new life and new adventures.
And it’s scary. And that’s where the trust in God comes in. Realizing that adventure is part of the plan when I open myself up to him and take that leap of faith. To realize that I’m more than I thought and on the way to understanding how God can use me when I stop doubting me and Him so much.
Adventure with God is a choice. It’s seeing that good can be great. That weakness can turn into strength and fear into obedience which equals courage.
So I forge ahead, more willing to try and fail (even though I don’t like that part so much), stretch and grow, listen and submit, to be freed to live as he imagines for me.