Dream Becoming Reality

Finally!!! So I never thought I'd be able to say this...but I'm going to Southeast Asia to help fight human trafficking and forced prostitution! I am! I'm going! This fall, just for a few weeks! It's been about 2 years since I felt God really impress this cause on my heart, and its been about 6 months since I first started actively researching organizations I could volunteer/work for. And only about 3 months since I found the Daughters Project. But it seems like an eternity. And now, I've been approved to come over and we're setting up dates! Wooooo!! A dream is becoming a reality... and I'm terrified.

Still More Eating, Praying and Loving

My thoughts are continuing to evolve from reading this book "Eat. Pray. Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. Her time in Italy was spent healing from her heartbreaking divorce and the whirlwind affair that followed. She chose to remain abstinent during that 4month journey into Italy. She reflected on her current state of singleness and what that meant to her social status and her self image. And I couldn't help but relate. I'm 25 and single. And I know that 25 isn't even old, but living in a culture that is swept up by couples and marriage and dating and sex, I do feel like a bit of an odd man out. But this was my choice to be single. I ended a relationship with an amazing man recently for many reasons, one simply being I felt less ready for marriage. "It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that kept so many people on that track forever." For me, the conventional lifestyle isn't an option. I WANT to be single, I WANT to travel to Cambodia, I WANT to see the world and discover a love affair with my Savior instead. "You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being." I don't believe my life is going to be measured in marriages or children, date nights and soccer games. I hope and pray my life is measured in love, by which I mean the love I give and receive from friends, family and complete strangers. That's really all I can ask for, right? In a world where dating reality shows vary from "The Bachelor" and "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila", is it such a bad idea to crave something different for myself? I hope not.

Still Eating, Praying, and Loving

In continuing my thoughts on my recent read Eat. Love. Pray. by Elizabeth Gilbert....
About halfway through her stories of Italy, Elizabeth makes these statements, "...this world is chaotic,...[don't] get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or function I may once have intended to serve....one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation." This so resonated with me, just a reminder about change. As my life evolves, and I evolve with it, I can't cling to what I thought I knew or who I thought I was. One thing that won't change is my relationship with God, or in essence, who I belong to. I am so grateful to know, and I mean really know, that I held safely in Him. While my life is defined with change and with unknowns, He is known and I belong to Him. Everything else is just part of the journey! And I'm determined to the enjoy the ride.