Go For It!

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        I have officially been home from Kenya for 5 days! I can't decide whether it feels like yesterday, or a year ago that I was there. I remember it all vividly, perfectly. The dirt roads, the sound of motorcycles going by, and a large bunch of wonderful, beautiful people that I miss like crazy-it is like a crystal clear snapshot that I can see perfectly, but is just right out of my reach. I can't take a hold of it. I can't touch it, feel it. I can't be there.
        I have never been a very patient person, and my time is a part of my life I have had a very difficult time surrendering to God. But slowly He is teaching me-or I guess it would be more accurate to say-slowly I am learning. I have surrendered everything I have to God, but often I reach out and try to grab it back in a panic, and every time I find that I mess it up. 
       Yesterday, we took our family from out of town zip-lining. I absolutely love it; being high up in the air, dangling from a cable, swinging from tower to tower! At one of the last towers, one of our guides, Keenan, was hooking me up to the cables. I don't know why I remember this, but after he finished preparing my gear, he looked up, smiled, nodded at me, and said, "Go for it, Rachel!" Long after I had hopped off the tower and flown down the wire, his voice still played in my head. Go for it, Rachel! Go for it! It stuck with me, and I got to thinking about it. The hooking up part, the preparing for the ride, is kind of like the place I'm at right now. It is hard because I just want to take off, but I have to wait. I have to wait for God's voice, telling me, "Go for it, Rachel!" As hard as the waiting part is, I know that He is preparing me, getting me ready for the long and crazy ride ahead. He knows when it is time for me to jump off, with blind faith that I won't fall, but that time is not now. And I'm learning to be content with that. 
        My cousin shared a quote the other day, and I just found it to be so true:
"I have held many things in my hands, and have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess." ~Martin Luther.
        When I chase after peace, love, satisfaction, adventure, fulfillment-all the things that human beings naturally crave-I never find them. But when I pursue Christ, I receive more that I ever asked for, or could even imagine. It's like I never learn. In my foolish mind, I sometimes get the silly notion that God has always been right before, but not this time; this time, I'm right. How laughable those words seem now, typing them, but that honestly goes through my mind sometimes, and each time I am proven wrong. God knows best. Always. He has always known what's best for me. He always will. So for now, I am bouncing up and down in the tower with anticipation and excitement, just waiting, listening, for those four words: "Go for it, Rachel!"


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