Meet Ollie & Owen--Elijah's giraffe slippers from Happy Feet!
If you're at all like me, motherhood has stretched you beyond your wildest imagination. Comfort zones? What are they again? With that first babe placed in our arms, we step out.
No matter how many parenting books we've read, when that little one starts to scream a visceral wave rushes over us delivering this message, "You have no idea what you're doing."
Yet we dare to do it anyway. Somehow we keep going and over time develop a rhythm that makes us think maybe our world has not actually come crashing down. It's working--we're really doing this, and it doesn't seem like we're screwing up too much!
But when we get comfortable with one phase, I've found that a new one lies in wait right around the corner. I've gradually come to believe that stepping out of comfort zones is a way of life we should be living. The way we keep from becoming stale and losing steam--the way we remember "this isn't all about me, but about something bigger."
It's not solely in motherhood where this happens, it may involve:
- going back to work after having a baby
- staying home full-time after having a baby
- looking for a job
- moving to a new house
- pushing 'publish' on that first blog post
- choosing to home educate
- writing the first words of that novel
- trying to meet new friends in a new location
As those babes get bigger, they start to watch us step out. This is scary stuff. Succeed or fail, we now have an audience.
I've been thinking about this lately because it's my turn to step out. Next week I fly to Ohio for my first speaking engagement at a national conference. How I feel about this opportunity depends on when you ask me. Most of the time I'm excited with just the right amount of nerves mixed in to keep it interesting.
But every once in a while fear rushes in like a bully to say "Why on earth did you agree to this?!"
Guess what? Fear or no fear, I'm stepping out anyway. (And I'd appreciate your prayers next week.) Trusting God to fill me with words of courage and inspiration.
Would you join me in daring to live beyond our comfort zones? Let God take you to places beyond what you've ever imagined (this may or may not include Ohio! ;).
“If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and
safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, that's death.”
~ Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
