Life keeps on moving, but your spinning around.
And your only connections your feet on the ground.
If hope is a question, will you find the answer?
If life is a game, will you play safe or chance it?
I've gotta move. I've gotta climb.
I've got to cling to this chance that is mine.
I wanna fly. I wanna soar.
I want to reach out when there's opportunity for... more.
A chance to step outside the circles,
to reach beyond the surface,
to grow, to share, to find
the circles we perceive
become knots and intertwine.
The interwoven mess seems to lead back to where you started.
But look a little closer and see that that's just part of it.
The patterns are beautiful if you can see,
the little glimpses they give you of destiny.
I've gotta move. I've gotta climb.
I've got to cling to this chance that is mine.
I wanna fly. I wanna soar.
I want to reach out when there's opportunity for more.
As you can tell from reading, the answers to why and why now, mostly stem from my desire to fulfill a call not only to serve, but to grow. I believe that this is the best time of my life, not wholly convenient, but best, to fulfill this purpose of exploration and passing on the gift of hope. All of my past experience(s) have led me to this point. I have climbed and I've searched myself, but you've got to come to a point that you finally take that final step of trust and faith so that you can feel that wind of flight.
Some know that this is my second attempt at becoming a YAV. I was chosen to go to Guatemala last year, and after a turn of events had to back out the summer before I would have left. In a lot of ways, this past year has felt like spinning around in circles, especially in the beginning. To feel so deeply that you are supposed to do something, and then not be able to do it, can really knock you down to where you really have to retrace your steps.
This year has also added new parts to my life that have helped get me ready for this year: more time to make music, getting back into theatre, a loving boyfriend, and a chance to get closer to my family and see the real extent of what their love means. All of these things have helped me build a firmer foundation.
In a late night of contemplation, I came up with the metaphor of friendship bracelets, especially the one with several strings in which you wrap one around at a time to make patterns. Each string represents a part of your life, the big picture (or in this case the bracelet.) Each specific parts have different times that they stand out, but they all work together to create a beautiful pattern. My strings would be faith (turquoise), family (brown), love (red), children (green), music (yellow), theatre (purple). There would probably be other colors and other things that aren't necessarily my strengths, but they are part of my picture as well. Until you get the hang of making your bracelet, it may seem to just be an interwoven mess of color, but as you continue, the beauty will increase. Once you start to really integrate your strengths together, the picture becomes clearer. But you shouldn't just cut of the "ugly" ends, but instead tie them together to give the whole thing strength and purpose (in a bracelets case, going around your wrist).
All this to say, we've got to take each opportunity for both self and world improvement that we can, and move where we're led, so that we might find new ways of integrating ourselves and discovering new possibilities for how to live our lives and who to share it with.
