“Will this change things? Is it the right time?” I’m constantly asking myself these questions whenever I go ahead and take a big risk. But, honestly? There is no “right time” to go about taking a risk. My life constantly feels like a complex structure of ebb and flow, figuring out what risk to take next with bold ambition. The risks I take are what make me who I am and I know that oftentimes, the risks I take inspire others to take them, too.
As kids, we learn from making mistakes like touching hot surfaces or choosing to do something ridiculous to our siblings. As teenagers, we go to school and have the choice to do well or make the mistake of failing constantly; we can choose to date or not to date, we can choose to take a leap and share feelings with someone or silently wait for the coals to burn out. The same goes with job opportunities, life-experience opportunities, parenthood, love, etc…
It’s a choice. We learn.
When deciding what to “do next” in the fall of my senior year of college, I had a number of choices ahead of me. One of those choices included taking a risk on something that logically, didn’t make sense. If God created me to be logically correct, I would have gone straight into looking for job opportunities. But life is often not logical and I was not created to go with the flow. I didn’t want to get stuck in a career before taking a little risk and taking a leap at something I knew would bring me life, healing, and help what was missing in my life click.
So, I jumped. Even though there were a handful of naysayers that told me to wait, to pay off my loans first, etc… I didn’t listen to the people that told me it was wrong timing, and it was the best decision I made for myself personally. I would not be who I am today if I had not made that decision and I am really thankful for that fact.
The truth is that life is a test with the only answers being “stop,” “go,” and “yes” or “no.” How we respond to the “stop’s” and go’s” in our lives make up the journey. Whether or not we say “yes” or “no” is everything and creates an impact of becoming. I just want more times in my life to be about responding to the “go’s” on chance, risk, and truth and less about responding to all the people telling me “no, stop, it’s wrong.”
When others see us step into truth, into life, into becoming that is beyond this world and only of God, they either want to support us and help us become all we can be, or they want to tell us “no.” I want my life to be about supporting others through encouragement and giving. I want my life to be about seeing people step into the things that God created them for. I want to help people be confident in the truth. I do that first by humbly being confident in who God created me to be.
The risk of telling the truth or being myself in a given circumstance in my life is worth taking if it has the capacity to change a life, change the course of time, and bring glory to God. The choices I made for after college changed lives, changed my own course of time, and brought glory to God. I may have zero clue about where I am going to end up in my life now, but I know that I want my life to look like taking chances, even if those chances and their outcomes could hurt me.
I can’t possibly get everyone to love me, but as cliche as this may sound, I’d rather be hated and looked down upon for telling the truth and being myself than loved for something that I’m not. So, will my choices change things? Yes, most definitely. Is it the right time to make those choices? Well, if we’re being honest, probably not.
But it’s a choice. It’s a risk. This is life.
And life, if anything, is a becoming of personal and wild events and choices that allow us to learn and move forward into all we were destined to be with God.
