Plunging

Ever feel like you're on the precipice, but just can't seem to plunge? That's how I've been feeling lately. I have so many plans, so many ideas, so many hopes and though I'm anxious to begin, they're all somehow weighing me down instead of lifting me.

I just read a book by Maria Housden called Unraveled. I finished it in about two days which is saying something since I've been in the middle of about 4 books seemingly forever. The gist of this book was her unhappiness in her marriage and her choosing a path for her life and following it. While the personal details of her story do not apply to me at all, her attitude spoke to me loud and clear. I circled the page number 132 and have reread parts of it a few times since.

It was as if I had been waiting on that bed forever, believing that someone else would have to do something or something else would have to happen before my "real" life could begin. Like a barometer, I had allowed my actions to be dictated by the wants and needs of others, secretly hoping that if I were good enough and patient enough, something good would happen. I was always on the cusp of something better.....What if I had gotten it all wrong, if all these years I had completely missed the point of my life? What if it didn't have anything to do with waiting, with trying to be good? ....what mattered wasn't about what happened outside myself or whether others approved; what mattered was how fully and unapologetically I was able to be who I was.

I loved the words on that page. I also quickly digested another book recently, The Best Year of Your Life by Debbie Ford. ...show up at each moment with the commitment to use all of your gifts, talents, and brilliance. If you're ready for a change, that's a fun book to accompany you.

So what am I plunging into? Perhaps just showing up at each moment with the commitment to use all of my gifts, talents, and brilliance. I'm tired of mediocrity and casualness, the story of my life. I want to model integrity and excellence for my children. I think excellence and showing up on "top of your game" is usually hand in hand with human competition these days, but my interests are far from that. I'm aspiring to "plunge in" to God's glory, not to my own.