faith enough to jump...

I arrived in Kansas City for the summer on Friday afternoon after spending two years going to school in Alaska. I knew coming home would be hard and different and I had mixed emotions. When I left Kansas City in 2005 to go to Alaska, I had to meet new people, make new friends, encounter new experiences. I missed my friends from Kansas City. After two years I have grown used to life there, grown to love the people there, given birth to memories. I have also changed a lot inside the last two years - growing and stretching.

Now that I am home it seems like I have to do the same thing all over again. I don't feel "at home" where I am now. I feel as though there's not really a place I belong, there's not really a place for me to call "home" anymore. I am in limbo. I miss my friends from Alaska. I miss the mountains. I am also dealing with a lot too, spring cleaning for the soul, so to speak. God is revealing things to me that need healing. My self-image. My complete and perfect trust in God. My relationship with my dad. My relationship with myself. It's already been painful and difficult to be home and as more things surface, it will, most likely, only get worse. I am dealing also with some of my dad's pain and brokenness which in the past has always put me in an unhealthy place.

I am scared. I feel unsettled. I am out of my element. Broke. Unemployed. Immobile. Aching to have a family. I am plagued by dreams that I am being stalked... by celery. Facing thirty in less than a month with all kinds of shoulds in my mind and on my heart. Why do I always return there? I always come back to shoulding on myself, no matter how dangerous I know it is. I miss having solid, authentic, intentional relationships. I feel stuck somewhere between fear and hope. It's like I am standing at the top of a waterfall looking down. I am scared to jump but I also know that the sun is scorching and if I do let go and jump I could be refreshed and that at the bottom awaits beautiful new life to taste and see that it is good. But it's a long way down and the jump looks dangerous. Full of rocks and sharp edges ready to cut me. I know that if I push way out in front of me and trust the knowledge that others have been here and jumped and not only lived to tell about it but rejoiced in it as well for the blessings they received for doing so, I will make it and be greatly rewarded. If I could only have a little more faith.

I want to jump to the last page of this chapter to see how it ends. What are the things I will have learned about myself? About others? About God? What are the colors that describe this time? How does it end? Are the textures and details alluring? In what ways have I grown and stretched? Better yet, in the end, will I have had faith enough to jump?