Doing It Scared

Bungee jumping, scuba diving, the cocoa pan at Gold Reef City and parktown prawns... All of these things sCAaRe me (and I am sure I am not alone in this).  Needless to say I have never bungee jumped nor gone diving (just the thought of being confined under water makes me need to take deep breaths!) and I stay as far away from parktown prawns as possible. Until now, the only thing I can think of that I have ever done scared is go down the last rapid on the Orange River in a canoe.  The rapid is called Sjambok and unless well navigated, canoes tip over and canoe occupants potentially get sucked under the water for a while and churned up a bit further down the rapid.  There is the option to walk alongside the rapid on the rocks but on this day, I decided to join Sean in our canoe and face my fear head on. I was petrified...terrified... And I think I may have cried a bit (okay, a LoT) but I decided that I was going to do it scared.  And I did.

Why am I talking about fears and canoe trips?

Well, you see, this past week was hard. My emotions were in an uproar, my faith felt fragile and to be honest I was really just doing what I could to get through one day at a time.  Why was this week different to any other?  Well, the week wasn't different.  I was different. 

With any big life change I think there are going to be days when the decision seems right and the road we have chosen seems easy and worthwhile.  But there are also going to be days when the weight of what these life changes mean bear down hard.  I have been trying to work out why I have some hard weeks which feel worse than what the normal weight of these life changes should feel.  I have come to one conclusion.  It all depends on where I cast my eyes. 

During the easier weeks, my eyes are focused upwards, off myself, off my circumstances and onto Him who I believe holds, sustains and protects and provides all things.  During the hard weeks, I am different - my eyes are on me, on my inability to control, on my circumstances.  I suppose you could say that I am looking at the water and the waves that my feet are walking on, rather than the One who is walking with me in this place.   I told Sean last night that for me, this whole life change is like permanently walking on water.  And let me just say, that with every step we take forward, I am doing this scared!  Very scared!!  And that's okay.  But I do need to keep my head up and focused on the right things if I want to keep going.  I have been thinking about something a lot today - about doing things scared.  It seems that in my world I have always assumed that if something scares me, I mustn't do it.  Why is that?  Why is it that I have never bungee jumped or been on the cocoa pan at Gold Reef City? Imagine what I could be missing out on by saying no to what scares me (parktown prawns excluded).

And this is just my point.  Our move out of the city, to a new and strange place, away from those I love and all that is familiar to me; this not only scares me... It terrifies me.  But, I am doing it and I am doing it sCaReD!  It has been a phrase that I have said over and over 'I'm scared but that's okay, I am doing this scared'.  And in some strange way, this is helpful. Helpful to acknowledge my fear, but do it anyway.  And just like bungee jumping and scuba diving, only time will tell what it is that I (and therefore we) could have missed out on if I had given into fear this time and said 'No', rather than, for the second time in my life, acknowledging that I am scared and doing it - regardless!