Scared

Soon after I emailed Dina and Argyris, I was driving down Royal when I thought, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever done."  My mouth curled into a smile as I thought about leaving my internship, my awesome supervisor and coworkers.  I thought about turning down a solid job in order to depend on fundraising, and my smile turned into a loud crazy laugh.

"Thank you, God!" I laughed.  "Thank you for pushing me through the doubt and getting me to this place.  I love it!"

I love the risk, I love the insanity, I love having to trust God.  I suck at that in the small everyday things, but when it gets big enough to be life-changing, I love throwing it all away.

Of course, that intense joy hasn't lasted.  Fundraising intimidates the hell out of me.  Leaving the lovely people in Dallas who know me so intimately, who have been my counselors and allowed me to counsel them--that sucks.  Imagining starting over in a new country, making new friends and finding new streets and grocery stores is already exhausting.

I feel a little bit like I'm not allowed to be scared.  I fear that someone will say, "Well, this decision is wrong.  You were right when you decided to stay in Dallas."  So for awhile I didn't tell anyone about my fear except for Michal.

Me:  "Yeah, I'm really excited. Starting to also feel sick with "OH MY GOSH WHAT AM I DOING" but I think it wouldn't be an adventure if I weren't a little bit terrified."

Michal:  "Most people live their lives never being afraid of anything. Which means you never experience the thrill of doing something risky you know Jesus is beckoning you to do. Jesus is in Greece too.  Or, they are scared of everything and are petrified into doing nothing also. Either way, you can be scared. Scared, and stay, and regret, or be scared, get drinks with friends and cry and laugh and dream over things who will support you no matter where you go, cry on the plane if you need to and then go freaking do it and have awesome stories to tell your kids one day, meet equally brave people, help those who are hurting, and contribute to a story God is creating with other people. You will smile when you look at Jesus one day knowing you went with Him to Greece."

What a friend.  I love Michal.  She had better come visit me in Greece five million times.