Intro D - Outside my comfort zone

 Maybe a tiny scrap of this is written on my soul by God.

Since young adulthood, I’ve sought out situations “outside my comfort zone”.

To a certain degree at least.

I flew off for a semester in Europe once. Didn’t know a thing. Didn’t know a soul.

I asked for a unique summer experience from my campus pastor. He suggested a summer in south Texas serving at a small church. Didn’t know a thing. Didn’t know a soul. Wasn’t qualified one bit.

Why did I want those things?

Somehow, I knew growth came in those ways.

Somehow, I knew that I’d learn in those places.

I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn.

Growing and learning doesn’t happen nearly as well in a comfortable place where ease is all around and there are no challenges or difficulties.

How did I know that?

Why did I seek that?

Grace, I suppose.

Now, my adult life has been one long experiencing in ‘outside my comfort zone’.

However, comfort has arrived, even here.

I sit in the evenings in my recently new recliner chair. With my warm blanket and my nice slippers and my fresh fruit and a warm drink.

And it’s just soooo, well, COMFORTABLE.

I don’t even leave our home much these days (because COVID) and I spend my time with my children and in my kitchen and I wonder if it’s all too comfortable, too easy.

I think of Ann Voskamp, on a remote farm with her family. I think of the pioneer woman of centuries ago… alone on the frontier with only fields and animals and her small family to gaze upon each day.

They, too, want(ed) an abundant life with God. And they had the same tools I have. A home to keep. A family to care for. A thought-life to tame. A heart to shape.

Maybe we are all the same.

But am I too comfortable?