I started writing a book yesterday. Saying that sounds ridiculous to me, but Pastor Andrew (the youth pastor at my church) really challenged me a few weeks ago. His message spurred me on to awaken the seed of inspiration that was placed in my heart several months back. The reason that I never started was that I am too young. What do I know about life? What could I record on paper that would actually mean anything? I hear stories every day about prodigies that are still in their teens, and they compose music, graduate college, and even become world-renown doctors. I believe that the reason that I come across these stories is so that I will know that my only restriction is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of public opinion, fear of failure, and even fear of success. Oddly enough, I want my situation to change for the better, but I'm not willing to change anything to let it happen. I stand in the way of my future, and I don't want to be moved.



If you are hungry, you have to get up and eat. If you want knowledge, you have to gather it. If you want to find something, you have to look for it (not watch - there is a difference.) Simply wanting something is not enough to gain that desired item. In my life, I see countless examples of instantaneous achievement. Overnight sensations and pure dumb look are over publicized as the way to "make it." The question in my heart has changed from "How do I make it?" to "What do I want to make?" E-bay had a series of commercials that comes to mind. There were several different scenes where someone would unwrap a package, there would be a laughably large "it" in different colors that related back to the e-bay logo. This "it" is whatever you want, or whatever you need. It is whatever you are searching for, and I must decide what "it" is.



I read on my friends' blog "you can always test the water, but you can’t get used to it till you jump in." This is an awesome life nugget for me. It's not necessarily the jumping that scares me, but the landing. It scares me, because I don't know how or where I will land. I don't know if I will like the view there, or if everything that I see from here is an illusion or not. What I have to take comfort in, is that God made the landing for me. He is there, and won't let me fall and scrape anything that doesn't need to be scraped (sometimes things need to be scraped, so I have to be ready for that.) Jumping also jostles things and re-arranges them. If you don't believe that, get close to 30 years old and jump out of a truck bed like you did when you were a teenager. THINGS MOVE!



In conclusion, growth and change correlate. If you are not growing, you are dying, but everything is always changing. I am in a constant state of change, and that fact is accentuated by my three children. The difference now is that I am not willing to let the good changes go by any longer without grabbing them.