Don't you just crave adventure?
Yeah, me too.
Adventure may look different for you than it does for me or my best friend or that girl across the street, but each of us has something that just sets us on fire and makes our heart beat a little faster.
For me that fire-starter is going. Where isn't necessarily important, more the act itself. When I sit stagnant for too long with no upcoming plans to go, I feel stuck and the urge to flee consumes me.
All that to say, when I moved all my belongings from my Tuscaloosa apartment back to my childhood home, that longing to run started crawling up my neck relentlessly.
In college I learned the joy and the significance of going--going across the globe to share Jesus, going down the street to connect with strangers, going somewhere outside your comfort zone. All my life I'd been in one place, ticking my leg alongside the clock for the moment I could break free and just go.
So I went and went and went, and never really needed to learn how to stay. Until now.
Now it's clear: how to stay is just the lesson God's teaching me in this season.
So I'm home with my family every night; I'm working a part-time job with an organization I've known well for more than a decade; I'm making plans into the upcoming fall and winter, evidence that my plans to go far, far away are themselves far, far away.
And it's actually been really fun. It's freed my schedule to take an impromptu trip to the beach, to spend a day in Chattanooga with my favorite fella, to watch the most over-the-top firework display I've ever seen in a back yard in middle-of-nowhere Alabama.
If this summer had been spent differently--going the way I have the past few summers-- I wouldn't have been around for the little things like watching my sister rock her first band camp or indulging in Nutella waffles at a gals' brunch in Tuscaloosa. I would've missed huge moments like helping my best friend plan her wedding, seeing an old friend get married and getting engaged myself (we're at that age where e v e r y o n e is getting married, right?? So weird.)
So as I spent early parts of the summer journaling to God and ravenously begging Him to take me somewhere, anywhere, He's lovingly tapped my head with a soft smile and told me to wait. And not only to wait, but to be content and satisfied. Imagine a chorus of deep, dramatic sighs from my depths.
Sometimes His words just kind of pour through me and out in my own handwriting. That's how He spoke in this moment: Help me find adventure in the ordinary, the everyday monotony.
I wrote it out, stopped and rolled my eyes at the ceiling. "OK, got it," I said aloud.
So that's what I've been doing. I'm in my hometown, working my way through a settled routine and fighting to find the extraordinary hiding before my eyes, nestled deep in the monotonous wheels of what I see as a season of waiting.
And there's the real kicker: this might not be a season of waiting for something else, something new--it might just be a season. A real, longstanding, we'll-stay-till-He-tells-us-to-leave season. Home is where He has me for now, and I'm learning to accept that without my infamous and unwilling sass.
Are you feeling in a rut, too? Like everything around you is just kind of boring and pointless? Are you in a season that you pray is just to learn patience and endurance, rather than an actual period of your life? Girl, I feel you. It's difficult, to say the least.
But will you come alongside me and commit to looking for something adventurous in your day-to-day life? It could be anything. If you've been following my Instagram stories, you know I've counted new Netflix series as my daily adventure, updating (and enjoying) my wedding spreadsheet, losing and finding my watch in my office's parking lot and other, seemingly non-exciting occurrences.
The key is that it breaks up your everyday cycle and takes you somewhere different, even for just a second. You'll be so surprised by how much those little moments encourage you to look for more, to be grateful for a life that is so different than what you planned for yourself.
So tell me, what small something is breaking up your monotony today? I'd love to hear all about it in the comments!
xoxo,
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