As September rolls in here in the mid-south, I am reminded of some wisdom I once heard:  "The best way to find God’s will is to get moving.  If you try to plant yourself where He doesn’t want you – He will move you.”  I am taking this wisdom to heart.  I find it easy to become so overwhelmed with choice that I become paralyzed.  The fact that many of us have so many choices in life can create a temporary paralyses on our part in that we don’t know which way to go so we just decide not to decide and we stay stuck in our mess.  We do this with the small things and the big things in our life from what diet to follow to what career field to enter.  At least, I know I can have this problem.  I have a lot of different interests and talents and I sometimes find it hard to choose or when I do make a choice I find brick walls everywhere I turn.  Does this mean to turn back or plow through?  All I know is that I cannot continue to sit still.  I have to make a move and trust that if I make the wrong one – God will let me know or better yet, move me.
 
I have experienced this with churches I have tried to become a part of and cities I have tried to make a home base.  In both cases, I never quite fit.  In one of the churches for instance, I could not find a community.  I searched high and low and was involved in multiple groups, teams and service opportunities.  I was putting out all of this effort to belong and I was getting nothing in return.  I eventually realized I didn’t belong there and I moved on to a different church where my effort was minimal and the return was substantial.  I found my church and community and I did little to make it happen.  The same can be said with a recent city I inhabited.  It was on the coast and absolutely beautiful.  Prices were cheaper so I could actually afford a place with some sort of water view and the weather was around 80 degrees most of the year.  Problem was I could not find a life sustaining career or a good group of friends.  I tried very hard and became involved in countless groups, Meetups and churches only to have an almost zero return on my investment.  Nothing seemed to work in this beautiful place – It just wasn’t meant to be.
 
These last couple of months in Memphis have had me thinking that I should take that advice I heard all those years ago and just start making a home and see what God does in return.  I have become involved in a church, some Meetup groups and am job hunting like crazy inside and outside of Memphis.  I have a budget worked out and I know what I can accept to move and what I have to reject no matter how cool the job may be.  I am not wasting time.  I am enjoying where I am regardless of how long I might be here.  Besides, if I get moved I will have had some enjoyable experiences to carry me to the next place I land and if I get planted then I already have a head start on finding and making a home base here in Memphis.

The drive back home was riddled with blinding rainstorms and interstate standstills so I had plenty of time to think back to life in Los Angeles and life in Jacksonville… The people I met, the things I learned, the growth that took place.  As I look back over the last five years there are definitely some people who stand out in my mind.  Some of these people are like Kirsten, Liz, and Tracy who became my close friends and made life fun.  Liz was my adventure pal.  We scaled a waterfall, paddle boarded and kayaked our way through various marinas and hiked our way through various mountain ranges during my time in Los Angeles.  I hope to start an annual girls adventure vacay with some of my LA friends and some of my Jacksonville friends soon.  I have so much more to see and experience and I want to make travel a top priority once I have the debt paid off and am back in my own place.  Kirsten, Larissa, Nora & Lauren were my Mosaic friends.  I met them all in a life group.  On my first visit I knew I’d found friends and we became just that close friends doing life together.  I miss having that in my life, but I am hopeful I will have some ladies to do life with again soon.
 
Someone I probably have not mentioned at all on this blog is a man named Joel.  He was a producer at a church I went to for a while prior to making Mosaic my home church.  I was freshly sober and scared of everything and somehow got put on the production team of this church to basically run the services.  By that, I mean I ran the ever so important Macbook that ran the pre and post house music, the pre and post screen loops, the worship lyrics, the teaching screens, the videos… the only thing I did not run was the lights and sound, but I learned how to do that too… well, the lights at least.  When I say I was scared of everything, I mean I really was scared of everything and everyone.  I had no idea how to do anything without alcohol and I walked around looking like a deer in headlights to everyone I encountered.  People were always asking me if I was okay and I always gave a very unsure “yeah”.   Joel had the task of taking this deer in headlights girl and making her into someone who could run church services like a pro and that is exactly what he did.  I remember the first time I was up to run point and he, being very smart, did not tell me.  Instead, he let me figure it out when I heard him praying for me in our pre-service prayer.  I had no time to freak out or get upset or think anything really.  The only thing I could do was quickly go over what I needed to do and just do it and I did.
 
This experience came in handy shortly thereafter when I was working with a filmmaker on a live non-profit show that featured celebrity guests.  One day I showed up a tad late at our downtown show location and the first words out of her mouth were “good you’re wearing something nice.  The host cancelled.  You’re it.”  And just as before, I did not have time to freak out and I relied on my previous experience to ask the questions I needed to ask and memorized what I needed to memorize and about 45 minutes later, after introducing myself to the celebrity guest and getting some information from him – I took the stage and played host for the evening.  It was so much fun!  I got to welcome the audience, introduce the guest and occasionally remind everyone why we were all there – for a charity called Kids Need to Read.  It was a great evening and we had a great time and more importantly I had a great time doing something I never thought I would ever do!  I’m an introvert after all, but I have realized that doing what I never thought I would do has been the name of the game for this deer in headlights girl.
 
After leaving Los Angeles, I got involved in Celebrate Recovery and soon found myself back on a stage.  This time I was giving my alcohol testimony and I did it for a few CR’s in the Jacksonville area.  The more I get on stage, the more comfortable I become.  I have learned the hard way that the only way to get over something that scares you is to do that very thing you fear.  Now, I give other people advice on how to overcome their fears and I routinely put those with public speaking fear on the spot because it is the only way anyone can ever over come that fear.  My next move is to get my teaching/preaching feet wet either in CR or in a Women’s Ministry, but I guess I need a CR or a church home for that. 
 
Actually, my CR leaders Jay and Karen in Florida also had a big impact on my growth over the last couple of years.  Looking back I now know the reason I was led to Celebrate Recovery – I needed a lot of healing.  I needed to learn to love myself.  I needed to learn how to make healthy choices and healthy decisions and healthy boundaries.  I needed to raise my self-respect and my self worth and that is exactly what I did.  I also was able to get my ministry feet wet by learning to become the women’s share group leader.  Jay and Karen are also the ones who got me onto the testimony circuit and provided feedback so I could get better at speaking in public.  I also needed to learn to love others, but I think that comes with being comfortable with yourself and understanding who and what you are.
 
This leads to the people that made the most impact on me. The Liz’s, Tonia’s and Tracy’s – the people who like me for me.  They think I am funny and intelligent and pretty and a whole lot of fun.  I didn’t know anyone could like me without alcohol.  I lived most of my life under the oppression of extreme social anxiety and it was not until I got sober, learned to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations and started making sober friends that I found true friendships that showed me things I never knew about my self.  I do belong and I do have a place in this world and there are people who cherish me for me.  I guess this is the biggest lesson I have learned because it is the lesson that freed me from trying to be anyone except me. 
I do not know what lies ahead for me, but I do know that I can handle whatever is coming my way.  Right now I am focusing on job hunting and once I land a job I can start making a place for myself while I get back on my financial feet.  I always wanted to leave Memphis and never come back, but maybe I wanted to leave because of what I needed to learn.

Well folks, that’s a wrap on Florida.  After a stress filled and tumultuous month of May, I am heading home.  I have come to a standstill on the chest knot after having a diagnostic mammogram, an ultrasound, some x-rays and a CT Scan. The only thing I know for certain is that it is the joints of ribs 5 through 7 and there is absolutely no mass, tumor or cyst to be seen.  While I have not ruled out a form of bone cancer, I would not have the possibility of moving forward until the end of July so I feel okay picking the situation back up when I get on insurance in Tennessee.
 
The nail in the coffin of the state of Florida is the fact that I cannot afford my own place and I cannot find a room to rent either.  I crashed at one friend’s place for a couple of months and left once I thought I had found a nice place to stay through a friend of mine.  Unfortunately, it became very clear that this person had never had roommates before and tried to control my every move and so I had to leave because while I can understand a few ground rules, this person has no say on whether or not I call my sponsor every day, go to church every Sunday or go out to parties with them when they invite me.  So I find myself almost homeless yet again and now I have a different friend letting me crash for a few weeks.  Half of my stuff is on her back porch, part is in my trunk and part is in my room in bags or suitcases.  It is this whole continuing to be homeless scenario that has me ready to go back to Tennessee where I have a nice house I can stay in while I get back on my feet.
 
I have decided to treat my home city just like I would treat any city I have moved to – like I haven’t been there before.  I am going to find groups and Meetups to join, rediscover the churches and just see what happens.  Having my brother around will also be of great benefit since he does a lot of car and truck restoration.  He has already said he can get the water out of my door and fix my seal – something new I am dealing with until I leave rainy Florida. 
 
A lot of my friends are asking if I will be staying this time and all I can say is that I plan staying a couple of years, but you never know what’s around the corner – I could be gone in a couple months or stay a lifetime… I guess I will find out when I head north on 75 in a few weeks. What I do know is the person returning is not the person who left.  After living on the West coast and the East coast – I have changed a lot.  I am not the same person; I have new perspectives on so many things.  But one thing my adventures have taught me is paradise is nice, but it can also be lonely if the people you love are too far away to enjoy it with you.  So here’s to going back home and making the old new again and enjoying time with family.  Hope each of you has a great June too!

It’s been a year since I penned Corralling Part 1 and I never wrote a part two, but then again, this special one is still in her holding pen.  I was driving the other day and reflecting on life in Florida and life in Los Angeles and the vast difference between those two lives.  I was also reflecting on my financial situation, which as we all know was just re-torn to smithereens. I was thinking, ‘how can I be in this situation again! How is it that I keep winding up here.  Why can’t I get anything going for myself!’  And just before I would come to a place of movement, I would think I guess I am just in a burning season.  I have thought this many times before, but this time God had something to say about it.  Abruptly and with force He interjected the following:  You are not in a burning season.  You chose this.  And you keep choosing it.
 
I knew exactly what He meant.  You see, I have a history of talking myself out of amazing opportunities and shrinking back into my little shell.  I also have a great talent when it comes to pulling out all the stops for a job that I won’t like and won’t pay me near what I am worth or need. 
 
I have been going through a CR Step Study so that in the future, I can lead a CR Step Study and we just had our burning party.  In this particular CR, after Step 4 and 5 are complete, we burn our inventories.  Since my focus for this step study was to rip out all of the lies I have believed about myself, I wrote all of those lies down on a couple sheets of paper and threw them into the fire and watched them turn into ashes.  It was only a few days after this that God told me that my so called burning season is due to my own choices and those choices have been rooted in fear due to the lies I have believed about myself for so long that I don’t even know where I first heard them.  Or perhaps I do know where they come from – experiences and events that scarred me and made me think less of myself.
 
This brings me back to that sermon from Erwin McManus that I seem to recount over and over again on this blog and in my life.  That sermon where he asked,  “whose voice are you listening to?”  Whose voice is getting the last word in your life?  Is it God’s voice or someone else’s? 

Well, if you want to know if you are listening to God’s voice then you have to know what God says about you.  While I am not the best at knowing scripture, I do know that according to scripture God delights in me.  He knit me together and considers me a masterpiece.  He loves me more than I will ever understand and while He is not always proud of my actions, He is always proud of the lady I am becoming while I venture through life with Him.  I also know that the Bible says we can do anything He has called us to do.  Maybe that is my hiccup.  Maybe I don’t know what I have been called to do.  I do know that we all have a calling to love God and to love others, but I believe we each have personal callings that match a passion burning within us.  And I am a lady of a million passions so maybe as Kim McManus said the other day, I am overwhelmed by choice so I keep not choosing.  I fear I don’t know how to choose correctly, or I fear I am biting off more than I can chew or maybe my fear in choosing allows the voices that aren’t God’s to flood me with lies and so I choose wrong again.
 
My life is about to get turned upside down all over again.  My roommate situation is ending at the end of March and I am desperately trying to get out of my latest job choice mistake by the end of May.  I am unsure if I will be renting another room in Florida for a few more months or if I will go back to Memphis, but I do know one thing – If a good opportunity that excites me ever crosses my path again, especially in the next few weeks, I am going for it.  100%.  Let the Lion Roar.  I am done with talking myself out of amazing opportunities.  I am done believing the lies.  I know the difference between my gut telling me something’s not right and plain old fear so from now on, - I am going with my gut.  It’s what brought me to Los Angeles and it is what brought me to Florida and one of these days my gut will lead me out of this holding pen. After all, my life verse is Joel 2:25 and I do believe that God will restore the years the lies ate away.
 

I really do miss LA!  My friends, my adventures and Mosaic. While I no longer have that constant nagging in my soul telling me to leave the City of Angeles, I also no longer have any sort of life.  My days consist of job hunting and playing with my roommate’s dogs.  I knew I was going to be up in the air for a while and I also knew that once I officially had a new city, it would take a while to start a new life, but the reality of it is just now hitting me and, for lack of a better word, it sucks.  As of right now, the only time I get out of the house is to go for walks, go on a job interview or visit a local church.

 I think it is safe to say that Erwin McManus and Hank Fortener have changed my worship DNA.  They and the Mosaic team introduced me to a freedom in worship that I never knew before and I am finding that freedom to be important in my next faith community.  I currently have 22 churches to visit in the Jacksonville area so here’s hoping one of them will offer the tangibles I am looking for and the intangibles that I require.  For me, worship is now a response to Who my Creator is, all of Who He is; His kindness, His mercy, His grace, His power, His unending love – all of Him.  I can no longer just stand in a service and robotically sing songs as if they have no meaning.  For me, worship is personal and messy and emotional and amazing and inspiring and communicative and heartfelt. Worship is my response to what Jesus is doing in me, for me and through me; and it was my time at Mosaic that taught me this. Mosaic also gave me an idea as to the energy Heaven is going to have when we all come together to worship our Creator. It’s going to be an energy we don’t want to be away from and I promise to try to bring some of that energy with me wherever I go.  If you ever find yourself in Los Angeles, I encourage you to attend one of Mosaic's services.  Whether you are a believer or not, the experience will be worth it.

 My friends in LA wrote a story on my heart.  They reminded me who I am and how much I matter.  For some reason I have always deemed myself as someone’s second or third choice, but my friends in LA told me a different story.  I learned that I am someone worth knowing and that I make a difference in people’s lives.  I learned what it means to be me, to stand up for myself and that I am someone other people want to be around.  I’m funny, spontaneous, adventurous, insightful, caring, intelligent, somewhat crazy and 100% worthy of love.  I am still trying to wrap my head around that last one, but my friends in LA are living proof of it and I miss them every day.

 LA is also where I learned what it really means to trust Jesus with my life.  LA beat me into a corner and left me for dead and in doing so I finally surrendered my everything (alcohol) to Jesus and I got sober.  It was the hardest thing I have ever done and it has changed my life forever.  Folks, I am living proof that AA works because I was one of those people that could not imagine, a me, without alcohol.  I mean when I heard love songs on the radio I thought about my favorite vodka drink or my favorite wine.  The tables have definitely turned and when I hear love songs on the radio these days, I now think of Jesus and something He has done or is doing in me, for me or through me.  Alcohol is no longer my everything. Jesus has taken its place and I trust Him daily to keep me sober as I navigate life without alcohol and trust Him to bring friends into my life that don’t drink for their own reasons.  I trust Him to keep me afloat financially and I trust that He has a plan for my life even though it doesn’t look like it right now.  I trust that there is a reason that I drove across the entire country and landed in a small city on the opposite ocean with just a few grand to my name and I trust that everything is somehow going to be okay and that I will be able to one day explain to all of you why I had to leave all that I loved so abruptly.  The only thing I know right now is that God is being very quiet.  Not exactly what I want from my Creator as I watch job opportunity after job opportunity slip from my grasp.  I have heard, however, that one of the keys to success is one’s ability to be comfortable in complete uncertainty so I guess I need to suck it up, enjoy my break from the daily grind and trust that if I am supposed to stay in Jacksonville then I will. I am, after all, in my Father’s hands and He is the pilot; I’m just a passenger on His flight who isn’t entirely sure of her destination.

 Lastly, leaving LA has made me acutely aware of how important it is for me to feel important and to be seen as important by people that I do not know.  Every time I have an era in my life come to an end, I fall back down the rabbit hole because I have no idea what to do with myself now that I’m not Jessica the athlete or Jessica the HR professional or Jessica the production coordinator or Jessica the show host or Jessica the bloody whatever… every time I loose my title my identity disappears with it.  I need to get rid of the notion that I am what I do.  I am so much more than a job title, but for some reason, my identity is wrapped up solely in outward success and as a result my light is very dim and my light should never be dependent on the thoughts of other people.

 All in all, I had and will continue to have a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles.  It taught me a lot about myself and when referring to LA or Mosaic I use “we” so perhaps I’ll be back one day.  For now, it appears I have some things to do on the east coast – I just haven’t figured out what they are yet.

 I wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year.  Stay Safe.  Stay Classy and don’t be afraid to Let Your Light Shine Bright.  I will see you in 2015.

As I write this blog, I am in the middle of saying my goodbyes to the friends that became my family here in Los Angeles.   I sure have had some amazing adventures here in the City of Angels.  Hiking, standup paddle boarding and kayaking became a part of my life here.   I can say I have sat on the top of a mountain, scaled a waterfall and learned to rock climb thanks to my adventures in LA.  While there will not be any mountains to climb in my new city, I know there are new adventures awaiting my arrival in Northeast Florida. 



 I recently wrote out a list of all of the things I want out of life.  I labeled this list Dreams: Having a partner in life in the form of an athletic, good looking, outdoorsy, faithful, spirit yielding man; having a broad platform as a writer/speaker/blogger for Christ; Having a ministry or three; having a family/Adoption; Owning my own home; Being financially stable; Staying Cancer Free.  I shortly thereafter wrote another list and labeled it Reality: obtain and keep a nice job that is easy and gives me enough money to not live pay check to pay check; Get involved in a church; Get my non-profit off the ground; Write and publish some books; cultivate my painting; adopt some fur babies; if financially able – host international students.

I later realized that the Dreams list represents what I perceive to be in God’s realm of responsibility and that the Reality list represents what I perceive to be in my realm of responsibility.  It hit me that I still don’t really trust God.   I guess there is a reason that Jeremiah 29:11 is my favorite verse.  For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, to give you a hope and a future.  I even wrote it on a huge painting (displayed above) and as you can see, this painting reveals that I need to work on writing with paintbrushes.   

 In a recent sermon, Erwin McManus recently stated that if we knew what all God was standing in between for us, we’d all instantly die of heart attacks.   The real reality is that neither list is in my control.  I have to learn trust God and I am having to trust Him more than ever with this upcoming move.  I am in the worst financial state of my life.  I have a car that has been giving me reason to doubt its ability to take me across the country and I will only have two months to make it in this new city to which God has called me.  I was so consumed with fear over my decision to move that I could not sleep.  My heart was pounding out of my chest and I was up walking around and telling God that I could not handle this move.  That He was asking too much of me.  That this was more than I could bear. 

 Erwin spoke earlier that day on how God meets us where we are and is always willing and happy to do so.  Erwin was recounting a scene from the life of Doubting Thomas. Jesus had just died and been raised form the dead and there were many witnesses.  Thomas, however, refused to believe the reports that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Thomas said he would only believe if he could put his hand in Jesus’ side where the spear had pierced Him and put his fingers in the holes of Jesus’ hands where the nails had been driven.  The part of the story that really hit me was that God did not get mad at Thomas.  He just showed up in all His glory, but with the spear hole in His side and the nail holes in His hands so that Thomas could realize that His God was not dead. 

In a similar fashion, God met me and my fear the very next day.  I woke up to an email from a woman named Grace, with a company I had been in contact with regarding an open position.  I have an interview scheduled three weeks out for my first week in my new city.  It calmed my soul for a day or two.    Then I started freaking out again and God gave me another interview.  I may not know if either of these interviews will turn into a job offer, but I do know that God is meeting me where I am and saying I have you in the palm of my hand.  This is my will for you so don’t make yourself sick over this move.  In fact, I have already gone before you and given you a nice place to stay.  The rent may scare you, but I already have that handled too.  God has also allowed me to know at least one of the whys for this move.  You see my current company is in trouble and a new GM has been hired and due to God giving me favor with one important person in this company, I have the inside scoop on what is about to happen and let me tell you – had I not put in my notice when I did there’s a good chance I would have ended up stranded in LA without a way to get home and no money to pay rent.  This move across the country might seem crazy, it might seem drastic, it might seem not well thought out, but this move is my saving grace.  Louie Giglio once said that God loves Chaos.  I think he is right.

I honestly do not know what is going to happen over these last two months of 2014.  I will either obtain a job or I will be packing up again and heading back to Tennessee to spend some time with my mom while I pay off debt.  The one thing I do know is that I am 100% in God’s hand and in His plan for my life so I now sleep fine at night knowing that whatever happens, wherever I end up – God’s Got Me and He definitely has a plan for my life or He wouldn’t be catapulting me back across the country to save me from what I could not see coming.

Change, my friends, is the name of the game.  God has been gently making me aware of why nothing seems to be happening for me here in bright, sunny California.  I mentioned in a previous post that I have been pondering the idea that my sobriety might have been why I was led here and that since I am now sober, my time here might be up.  Over the past few months, God has been making this more and more clear to me and I believe I know where He wants me too.   

It’s like God has taken my dreams and started replacing them with His own.  It feels weird.  Once, I knew what direction my life needed to take, I began badgering God for a place to land.  I know the words ‘badgering God’ don’t sound too smart, but I felt that I needed more direction than ‘leave LA and look for stuff like this…’ And so over the course of a week I would get up each day asking God where He wanted me and I would see a map with a circle over one half of the country.  Each day I would ask the same question and each day the circle would get smaller and smaller and smaller until it was over a city.   I know of this city, but I have never been there; however, after doing some research, it does meet a lot of my requirements: on the coast, at least medium sized, good weather, lower cost of living, etc.  It’s crazy for me to even think of moving right now and I have let God know that it seems financially impossible at the moment so I am leaning on Him for this potential move.  I also cannot fathom leaving the friendships I have here, some of which are just beginning to blossom.  And then there is Mosaic – I get up each Sunday excited for worship, excited for a brain challenge from Erwin and Hank and I simply cannot fathom finding a place that matches the energy of this faith community I now call home.  But more than anything, I know I want to be where God wants me because if I am not where He is, it won’t matter how I position myself; the doors will remain locked.

The real uprooting that is taking place in my life is the ripping out of the belief that I am simply not good enough for anything or anyone that God has planned for me.  I guess this has always been an underlying current in my life from sports to career to men to my overall social graces.  It started one night when I was looking at myself in the mirror and getting superbly upset and Jesus reminded me of that day I actually saw myself in the reflection of a man’s sunglasses.  My entire rib cage was exposed.  I had no idea I was that skinny.  I never saw it reflected back to me.  The mirrors I look into only reflect an overweight and hideous looking person.  Then God reminded me about how I tend to get unwanted attention from men.  They always have to look me up and down about five times before they start talking and they have to whistle or say something stupid… Jesus reminded me, in that moment, that I cannot see myself correctly.  Later that night Jesus tapped me on the shoulder while I was going to sleep and said, “It’s time to deal with this.  We have to for what is coming.”  I simply replied, “Okay, but You’re gonna have to do it because I cannot even begin to deal with all that encompasses.” Crazy thing is… He is doing just that. He has made me acutely aware of how much I bash myself on a daily basis.  I mean every other sentence is nothing but self-degradation whether it be my appearance, my efficiency, or my brain.  It wasn’t long before He was cutting me off and by that I mean that internal pulling that makes you stop talking mid-sentence and you’re like yeah sorry and you move on to another topic.  At this point, I can’t even get those sentences out of my mouth.  I mean I’m even starting to like the way I look in the mirror! That’s a first, people, that’s a first.  Jesus is doing exactly as I asked, He’s uprooting this unhealthy and limiting belief from my life and I have absolutely nothing to do with it.  It’s just happening.  But then again, that’s the God I serve.  He never gets angry or frustrated with my incredible humanness.  He just meets me where I am, only giving me what I can handle, always calling me to a greater purpose and He never fails to carry me when required.

Perhaps next month, I will be able to share about the new dreams God has placed in my heart.  I feel like God has taken the dreams and plans I had on the front burner and replaced them with the dreams I had put on the back burner.   I never really got on the whole Tebow bandwagon, but I have been looking into him lately because it appears God might be doing the same with him in that he seems to have also had two very different goals in life and per recent events, God seems very concerned with the one and not so much with the other.  I guess time will tell if he stays on his new road or gets diverted back to the NFL.   And time will reveal whether I will be starting down my own new road and whether that road is here in LA or in a city on the other side of the country that looks really nice from a Google Maps perspective.    

Oh and one more thing! In case you haven’t heard already, November 9th, 2014 is the first ever World Adoption Day!!!  Spread the word to adoptive hearts everywhere whether they were adopted, have adopted or are interested in learning more about adoption.  World Adoption Day is a global celebration of life and family and we want everyone involved!  Go to worldadpotionday.org to find out more!  

You find me this month in the beginning stages of downsizing.  I know you must be thinking how can you be downsizing when you rent a room?  Well, I am moving into a much smaller room later this month in a more prime location.  I may be giving up a little bit of space and a tad amount of privacy, but I am gaining central air conditioning, a nice large patio and a fully equipped kitchen I share with only one other individual.  Not to mention the fact that I will be right down the street from a large park where I like to jog.  Looking at the mess that is my room, I have no idea how I even managed to get all of my belongings into my car the first time around, but I will most definitely not be taking all of them with me to my next dwelling.

I guess you can say that I’ve been clearing away the clutter from my life as well.  This past month has brought a lot of acceptance on my part.  Accepting where I am in life and my part in it all.  Accepting that my choosing to stay on a path of destruction might have made me miss out on some of the very things I desperately wish were a part of my life and accepting the cold hard fact that it might be too late for some of those things at this point.  It’s a hard pill to swallow, but through this acceptance I have been able to relinquish some of the control I foolishly hold onto.  It’s so strange how the things I nonchalantly ask God for are the very things He provides, but when it comes to the things I cannot let go of and continue to pray, beg and plead for… He doesn’t even touch.  I guess He is waiting for me to leave them in His hands and by leave He must mean give to Him, relinquish all control and go on about my business… Something I don’t do very well.  If you think about it, it is practically impossible to do anything with something someone keeps taking back and messing with.  It's like a spreadsheet you spent hours formatting only to find that someone else logged in and managed to delete half of your painstaking work.

I guess it makes sense that I shouldn’t have to keep checking in on my God and making sure He knows what He’s supposed to be doing on my behalf.  I guess I should stop rearranging all the prayers in my prayer box each week.  Yes, I do that.  I guess I need to learn that age-old lesson that says if you truly want to see God work, then you have to truly let go of the situation.  So when I say I have been getting rid of the clutter, I mean I have been practicing giving God the control He deserves.  He definitely led me to California and He definitely placed me in the right part of LA for my first year.  He also led me to a job, that while it is very taxing on me, I am around some very amazing people that treat me extremely well and not many people can say the same.  He also lead me to a church with people who have been willing to put up with me while I was scraping through my first stages of sobriety and now He has lead me to a great new dwelling for year two of life in LA.  When I say I am getting rid of the clutter, I mean I am letting go of bad habits.  I am letting go of fear and letting go of control and taking steps to simplify my life and my time and loving every minute of the person I am slowly becoming.  Besides, life is too short to deal with the ramifications of a cluttered soul.  

“Walk out of any doorway, feel your way, feel your way like the day before.
Maybe you'll find direction,
Around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you.”  
Lyrics from Box of Rain, Grateful Dead

Have you ever been in a situation where you were so sure it was going to work out only to find yourself slapped in the face with calamity, disaster or even worse, humiliation?  Have you ever had a person enter your life that you thought was the answer to a problem only to have them spit in your face and call you crazy?  Have you ever landed a great job only to get settled in to find that the writing on the wall screams not your cup of tea?  Well, that’s just God taking you in a different direction. 

I’ve had a string of these situations recently and I find myself in the middle of such a situation right now.  It’s not fun being unsettled, especially when the writing is so clearly written on the wall and you have yet to uncover your next destination as well as the how and when of your arrival.  It’s like being stuck in two worlds.  You know you aren’t staying where you are and you have some clues to where you are going, but the exact destination and route are still unknown.  It’s all God leading you in a different direction.

I was recently handed a job that was a literal lifesaver in that I was about a month away from being homeless when I got hired.  I was very excited to find that not only was I able to stay in California, but I also had a pretty easy job with awesome co-workers, kick-ass bosses and a general laid back, easy going vibe of an office.  All in all, it was a good fit… well, all except for the fact that it is nowhere near my life’s passion.  I knew when I took the job that it was not a forever kind of deal, but I had no idea the honeymoon was going to end so quickly!  These past couple of weeks I have become very aware of how tired and drained I am at the end of the day and the general disinterest in all things pertaining to my job doesn’t help either.  Moreover, God is staring to nudge me in terms of reminding me of why I came to California in the first place.  He’s starting to build a fire under me regarding my writing.  I told my God that I needed a day job that excites and energizes me if I was going to get my writing groove back.  I also spewed something along the lines of this tired and annoyed shadow of a human being is hanging on to her sobriety by a thread and now You’re nudging me to get back to writing?  When and how was that going to happen?

 For all I know I’m just having trouble adjusting to working full time and you know – being fully aware of it.  Luckily, I remembered something Mastin Kipp said in one of his classes… that confusion precedes clarity… so I’ve been hanging on to that invisible thread, and trusting God to show me whether it’s me or the situation and what my next steps should be and then something amazing happened.  For starters a nocturnal owl perched in the room next to mine confirming my search for new digs…. Mind you I’m not sure where I should search for digs at this point as I also started hearing things at work about how the company was going to be changing over the next year.  As it turns out, almost everything I love about the company will soon be non-existent.  The people I love are moving to a different location, the laid back atmosphere is being replaced with an annoying high security ambience and the one thing I’ve always said I’d never partake in is becoming a part of my job duties.  Well, how’s that for some giant and completely legible writing on the wall!  I told my God I was beginning to feel like I was being shooed out of a town without any money or transportation to take me on to the next town.  I then began to become acutely aware of the fact that the work I do in an internship capacity always energizes and excites me no matter how drained I am and that I needed to pay attention to that particular piece of information.  It also dawned on me that I happen to hold a volunteer position in a different component of the same field.  Light Bulbs Flashing!  So not only was the writing on the wall as clear as day, but I finally had a clue as to what direction I needed to move towards.  It’s all such an emotional whirlwind: this whole being where I am, while trying to figure out how to get to where God’s taking me.  I like the people I work with and there are perks to my job, but it just isn’t my final destination.  This job is more of a layover in that it is keeping me in place so I won’t miss the plane that is about to pull into the gate.

Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t and we can’t take it personally, we just have to realize that God may be taking us somewhere else.  The next time something or someone doesn’t pan out, ask God what that was about… I’m sure He’ll tell you that it was just Him leading you in a different and better direction.

Happiness, hit her, like a train on a track
Stuck still, coming towards her, no turning back
 --  “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence Welch & Isabella Summers

This year has brought a lot of necessary change as well as some mighty useful life lessons.  After three years of wrestling with whether or not I should move to Los Angeles, I shifted into gear and drove across the country and landed in the San Fernando Valley.  I quickly became accustomed to the LA area traffic windows, pedestrians and the unfortunate parking situation that is known as the City of Beverly Hills.  I mean what is there not to love about this town?  It is beautiful here and it usually boasts awesome weather to boot.  While I wish I could say this journey has been all smiles and no frowns, I would be lying.  I recall that in one of my resolutions from last year I stated that I felt God might have some intentions that were not on my radar and He did. 

Enter Life Lesson #1:  For reasons beyond my understanding at that time, God deemed it necessary that I get clean and sober and stay that way.  After taking a couple of classes with Mastin Kipp (you can find him over at The Daily Love) I came to realize that my lack of sobriety was the one thing keeping everything from falling into place.  It became clear to me that God was holding the key to my being able to stay in LA and that the only way He would hand over that key was if I handed Him my alcohol – something I wasn’t willing to do, but under the circumstances I had no choice.  As the fog cleared and I started feeling feelings I’d never really felt before ( aka loneliness) I stumbled upon …

Life Lesson #2:  I found my Creator and Sustainer and He wasn’t mad at me nor did He want to punish me; quite the contrary, He wanted to love me and prepare me for the gifts He still plans on giving me.  As I continued on my sober journey and took a second class with Mastin, I came to realize…

Life Lesson #3 … that my fear of not being good enough is the root to every problem I have, including the alcohol.  I learned that I continually sabotage myself by subconsciously seeking out people, places and things that reinforce my status of “fuck-up” or “black sheep” or “not good enough”.  I learned that I have continually put myself in situations where I either didn’t have a chance to shine or never could shine so that I could keep my comfort status.  I apparently decided that I’d rather amount to nothing and never achieve anything than face the fear of finding out if I am indeed good enough for myself, my family, my friends, much less a good man and the lovely masses. 

So for 2013 I only have one resolution and that is to reinforce the positive in my life, which in turn allows me to face my fear of not being good enough on every level possible.  This means putting myself in situations where I have responsibility so I can start changing that comfort status of mine.  God, being several steps ahead, already has things set in motion.  I have a new job where I am learning how to handle studio assets and accounts, a volunteer position where I am learning how to handle the media portion of a church service and an internship where I will be handling a live show or two come spring.  I am also reinstating my writer status and have three projects to kick me off.  Reinforcing the positive also entails spending time with quality people that have good hearts and good minds and are supportive in nature and you know actually give more than a flying hoot when it comes to my world.

Happiness does indeed sometimes hit like a freight train, especially for those like myself who fear anything that is actually good for us.  I define happiness as a change that you don’t want or fear because you don’t realize that it sets the stage for all the things you want to come into your life.  For me, sobriety hit me like a freight train.  I hated it.  It turned my comfy, miserable world upside down and made me realize what was actually keeping me in a deadly holding pattern.  It also set the stage for me to uproot my greatest fear from my life and thereby make it possible for all the things I have secretly wished for to finally make an appearance in my life.  So as we start this New Year, my only question for you is what is your freight train?  What change do you need to make?  I cannot promise it will be an easy ride, but I can promise it will most definitely be worth it.