When I was a little girl, my favorite tv show was “The Magic School Bus.” I would come home from school in the afternoons to watch a newly recorded episode on the DVR while munching on whatever snack my mom had prepared for me that day. And if you’ve ever seen the show, you’d know the quintessential catchphrase Mrs. Frizzle would recite at the beginning of every segment– mainly in response to whatever quivering excuse Arnold would offer as to why taking a field trip wasn’t such a good idea (thank goodness Mrs. Frizzle never listened!).

“It’s time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”

I used to be all about this. You only get one life, right? Shouldn’t you live it to the fullest? Take risks, push limits, break the glass ceiling!

And then when I was a senior in high school, that courage led me to bravely ski off a terrain jump… which then resulted in a catastrophic knee injury that demanded multiple surgeries and a whole year to fully recover from. After that, as a freshman in college, I bravely rushed headfirst into a romantic relationship which found me six months later cradling my broken heart in tears.

That was when I decided to call it quits and tuck my childhood motto into bed for good. My attraction to the extraordinary had resulted in nothing but pain, so I reverted back to the ordinary. I stayed home instead of going out, watched Netflix to pass the time, and constantly wondered about all the things I could have done differently. Before long, I found myself at the height of misery, completely unsatisfied with my life.

Looking back, I can tell you now that it was because I wasn’t created to be satisfied by the ordinary. God created me, and everyone single one of us, with an undeniable thirst for the extraordinary: to see the hopeless lost become found, to perform bizarre miracles that defy the natural laws, to be the hands and feet of a God that society will constantly reject.

We weren’t created to live mediocre lives. My heart was never meant to be fulfilled by living safely. And as a generation, I don’t believe that we will ever be content with safe. We need to take chances, make mistakes and get messy.

And yes, you can fail. You will fail and it won’t be pretty. But at least you tried. Who knows? Maybe what looks like failure is really just a wide open door to a better opportunity.

Take it from me: if I hadn’t taken a chance and clicked the apply button, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.