illumination.

[this is mostly for myself. to have it typed up somewhere besides just being in my journal.

but i figured some people might like to read it. and if not, fine with me.]

(written 19 June, 2011, 8:38pm.)

Member how I love my life? Don't even worry. Definitely still do.  I'm sitting out on the balcony right now.  As usual.  As I sit here and watch the clouds go by in the rather overcast sky that rolled in after a clear, hot day, I can't even imagine the thought or idea of leaving this place--this home of mine.  For that's what it has become: a second home.  Sometimes life feels like a dream.  Like I couldn't possibly be lucky enough to live this life of mine.

Today makes 6 weeks since I boarded a plane and left my American life of familiarity and comfort behind, and headed towards the great unknown.  Unknown country, unknown language, unknown life.  But here's the thing about the unknown: when you face it head on, it can't stay unknown for long.  While the change is abrupt and at times hard, the foreign soon becomes the natural, the routine, the familiar.  And maybe that's the point of life.  Before I left, my Grandma Janette told me that Grandpa Hales used to say, "life is measured by new experiences."  Once the new is no longer new, you only remember a routine and enjoy it for so long before itching for something new--if you're willing to take a chance and take that step into the unkown.  Make a change. Those are the hardest steps we ever take in life: that first step into darkness and unknown, before everything becomes illuminated.

When I was flying here, and in several moments when everything was still so new here, I questioned and doubted myself. Wondering why I was doing this, and sometimes going so far as to wish I had just stayed home.  But now I spend my days recognizing that I wouldn't trade this opportunity and experience for anything in the world.  Changes are hard.  Being in a foreign country that has a different way of living and speaks a different language is hard.  The thing about hard things is that they always get easier.  The night is always darkest just before the dawn.  The Lord sometimes brings us low so He can bring us higher.  I knew from the start that this summer would be full of changes within me, hard things, and joy beyond description.  But until I actually experienced it, I never could have foreseen the growth, learning, changes, or beauties that would manifest themselves in my life and in the world around me.

Good thing I took that step, eh?  Here's to six more weeks of new changes, joys, beauties, and growth.

[which is now five more weeks.]

"As you walk to the boundary of your understanding into the twilight of uncertainty, exercising faith, you will be led to find solutions you would not obtain otherwise. With even your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His eternal plan is best for you, when it will yield the greatest advantage. Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. That causes your faith to increase and your character to grow."

Richard G. Scott, The Transforming Power of Faith and Character