We have arrived safely in Antigua and are settled into our hotel for the evening. For some reason I don't feel like I'm quite in travel mode this time around. My brain has been working overtime on CPA studying, and the rest of my spare seconds are spent daydreaming about and pursuing my small business goals. I'm training for a marathon, I'm trying to find a job and me me me me me me. At this pointing my life when 1000 changes are imminent I'm faced with the "What are your plans?" question frequently. Over time this has cultivated this unhealthy fascination with talking about myself incessantly. To quote Mia Thermopolis, I've realized "how many stupid times a day I say the word, 'I'."
In preparation for 2016 I followed Lara Casey's goal setting series to set intentional and attainable goals for the year ahead. This process was supposed to be accompanied by reading her book, "Make It Happen," but life happened and it took me months to get through it, so I just finished reading the last steps and pages on the plane from DFW to Guatemala. The entire book is focused on "living on purpose." Lara tells her story of her "old" life, hurried and focused on perfection, moving a million miles a minute to be the next big thing. I can relate to all of it, and she identifies fears and emotions that I didn't even know I was experiencing.
But the last quarter of the book is focused on eliminating the clutter and taking intentional steps to live on purpose. What if every minute of every day was focused on being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ? At first I thought, well duh, that's the whole command of the Gospel. But the more Lara broke it down, the more I realized that my life and my time looks nothing like it should in order to portray the Gospel. I don't know if I could tell you a single time I got on social media this month that wasn't to promote me or to compare my highlight reel to someone else's. I am humbled and ashamed to admit to you that 3 out of 5 mornings this week I chose to spend time working instead of meeting one of my 2016 goals to read the Word and get on my knees and pray. But I sure as heck had time to check Instagram every 20 minutes.
You're probably like, "Don't care that you're a crazy jumbled mess, just want to hear about your trip," so let me tie it back together if you've been so kind to read this far. This week, I am determined, will be one of purpose. It will be one of prayer and stepping outside of myself. It will be one of asking others questions and listening to their answers without interrupting with my own stories or opinions. It will be one of soaking up the culture and the presence of the Lord in the sights and people around me. I will use social media to spread joy through my hand lettering and to share the work of the Lord through my blog posts. Friends, I need your accountability and prayer in these things! I am thankful for incredible faculty and a wonderful and diverse team as we dive into this adventure, and I anticipate with so much joy the work that will take place in our lives this week.
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