a blizzard i don't mind so much

I haven’t really been blogging for all that long, however I have been documenting important memories and big events in my life ever since we were required to keep a journal for Mr. Nelson’s classes in like 8th grade. Never in all the years that I’ve been recording my thoughts have I ever had as much to write about as I do now. July of 2008 has been the craziest month of my life, especially the past 2 weeks or so. I’m going to briefly list some of the reasons why in this particular post, then hopefully touch on each one more specifically over the next few days (weeks?). I definitely need to record this stuff. It’s been a month I’ll never forget, and here are some of the reasons why…

• Took a much-needed vacation to Palm Beach FL with Justin
• Took my first step towards my future career by taking a “demo flight” in a helicopter
• Got a free round-trip airline ticket and made a new friend on the longest travel day of my life thus far
• Had my first surprise birthday party on the most memorable birthday of my life
• Got to be on a dance team and participate in a country music video for CMT (oh this is quite a story, lemme tell ya!)
• …and finally, the big one: received a job offer that may potentially bring with it some tremendous opportunities and is guaranteed to bring with it some major life changes.

I feel like my little “snow globe of life” has been slowly settling over the past 4 years. All the exciting little particles of activity had settled to the bottom and life was beginning to get rather humdrum. Sure there were still things that would happen every now and then that would bump my little glass ball and stir up some short-lived activity but for the most part it felt like my life was getting a little stagnant.

Well, over the past 7 months or so, that all changed. It started with the Judge Judy incident in Dec of 07 / Jan of 08. What an experience that was! It couldn’t have gotten the year off to a better start. Since then, things have continued to get incrementally more exciting until this month, July of 2008. This was obviously the month that God decided that the waters of my life’s little globe had been sitting un-stirred long enough, so He picked it up and shook it like crazy!

It goes without saying that any time there are sudden and unexpected changes to a lifestyle you’ve grown comfortable with, you can expect there to be a bit of uneasiness (uncertainty) that comes along with it. True, I do feel a smidge of that uneasiness but this is different. I welcome this excitement. I welcome these changes. I welcome these unexpected events that have caused my snow globe to explode into a blinding blizzard of activity. I have no idea what to expect but it’s extremely exciting.

I’ve been saying for a while that I wasn’t happy with the way things were going and was in need of some changes but I was too comfortable with where I was to do anything about it. Not now. I’m ready and the “die” has been cast. It’s in God’s hands (as always) to control the outcome. I know all of the changes aren’t necessarily going to be good ones but I welcome the challenges I’m about to face. I’ve seen how the things I’ve been through over the past 4 or 5 years have changed me, for the better I believe. They’ve taken me places I never imagined I’d go and taught me things I never imagined I’d know. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.

“Change can not happen by doing the same thing the same way. It will take sacrifice somewhere, some way.”