This trip has taught me so much. From the moment I told my 83 yr old momma I was coming, she said she wished with all her heart she could come along with me. But the next thing she said was even more profound. She said, "I'm so glad you didn't turn out the way we raised you. I've never done anything like that in my life and now I'm in my last years. All I can do is make the best of it." My mother's statement shook me to the core and warmed my heart all at the same time.
You see fear was a huge presence in our home. We were raised to be afraid of everything and anything that could possibly happen. The result? A very limited confined life. I used to own a lot of real estate in the community of Much Afraid. Pretty sure I was the HOA president! Twenty years ago I was diagnosed as an agoraphobe. I could not leave my home let alone meet new people and certainly not venture across the country solo to a place I've never been. But life is a great teacher if we agree to the syllabus. Thankfully we have an author and perfecter with other plans for our lives. I think where we sometimes go wrong is believing that we can't live with passion and desire. We do what my mother has done most of her life settle in and "just make the best of it”.
This trip has taught me that is not the case friends. There is a journey that awaits full of twists and turns, excitement and intrigue and yes even lots of passion and desire. Do we dare to allow ourselves to experience it? There’s a song by One Republic, it’s aptly called, “I lived”. The chorus of this song says, “I owned every minute that this world could give and with every broken bone, I swear I lived.” I love that. We have to live and we have to “own” every minute or we allow fear to tell us how small the cell will be that will be our confinement of contentment.
Today, I drove to Aspen. It was the most incredible drive through the mountains. And when I say through the mountains, I’m talking about switchbacks, no rail and only 1 car can go at a time. The fun thing was there were certain points where you couldn’t see around the corner. Best you could do was hope that there was no one else coming at the same time you were. I laughed to myself as I considered the definition of faith- faith is what we hope for but cannot see….just like this road.
A few months ago, if someone had told me that this week I’d be in Colorado having the most amazing time, that’d be hard to believe but I would have hoped it were true. It has been my dream for quite some time to come to Colorado, for years in fact. The reality is I never believed it back then. Let me clarify, I didn’t believe it for me. Truth be told, I probably wasn’t in a place to receive such a gift. The point is, whatever your heart longs for, whatever your dream is, whatever makes you come alive—don’t stop believing for it!
My son and I talked about this just yesterday. We discussed how most people that really don’t believe in a higher power or aren’t spiritual might say there is no such thing as fate, but merely coincidence. I don’t believe that’s true at all. I believe fate is that there is a larger plan, a specific purpose, dreams waiting to be fulfilled for our lives but that’s only the first half of it. The second half of it is believing it will come true. I have always resonated with mountains, rivers, trees and all that this rustic place offers. Going to Aspen today, I received so many of those gifts along the way. Sceneries that words cannot do justice. Friends, don’t let fear keep you from experiencing life, don’t just make the best of it. Live!
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