Time for a new chapter...

Change takes many forms, sometimes it is feared while at other times it is looked upon as a blessing. Change may be different for us all but one thing is certain, change happens in all of our lives.

I know I am not the first to say it or the only one who believes it...but it still deserves to be repeated; it isn't what happens to you that defines you, it is your reaction to it.

When I started working in the mail room at Rhema there was a quote posted on the wall. It said, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.". I believe this to be true. We all have things happen in our lives. I have been truly blessed with how my life has progressed. I have an amazing family and the best friends anyone could ask for. I have been "in the right place at the right time" in order to get the experience that was needed to get me the job I will start on Wednesday. I just happened to be crazy enough to get up at 6am to play basketball every morning 12 years ago and I met an equally crazy man named James. James just happens to be the youth pastor at the church where I will be going. He is the ONLY person who I have kept in contact with from my first year at Rhema...well sometimes he has been the one to keep in contact with me. He essentially tricked me into coming out and hearing the pastor speak and then got me set up for an interview for a job that I wasn't looking for.

Now this series of events is something I could have never set up on purpose. I didn't plan it and some would say (and at times I may say they aren't far off) that I don't deserve any of it. I wasn't "qualified" for the job I had, but I was faithful and I worked hard. I am now qualified and I'm leaving for an unknown. A job I am very excited about but is not one that is clearly outlined. Once again change showed up and I am going on faith and that is enough for me.

Some of you don't share my faith, some people say that it is all about luck or chance or karma...but I simply can't agree. I shouldn't be alive today. I have been in 2 accidents that should have ended my life and yet here I am. I was flying to Tulsa to visit my brother and I was offered a job that once again I didn't have the qualifications or the experience for. I couldn't have "applied" for the job with any confidence and yet it was dropped on me. All of my jobs in the past 10 years have given me the skills for the job that I received after it and that in and of itself is a miracle. No one is more surprised or more grsteful than I am at the opportunities I have been given.

I say I am taking this job on faith. That is true but there is more than just my faith at work here. There are now at least 500 people in Arkansas who are putting there faith in me. Normally when I write it is to make you think, it is to try to invoke a response from you, a call to action in your own life. Tonight/this morning...I am writing so that you will see something. You will see the choice I have made. I am stepping out of the comforts of my job, my house, my family and my friends into an unknown. Failure is not an option. I will do the job they have asked me to do. You can hold me accountable and hold me responsible. I believe I will be given the tools needed to succeed and I know I have the desire. They say God helps those who help themselves...I say God will help me as long as my goal is to help others. Tomorrow I pack my car, Tuesday I move and Wednesday I begin a new journey. I will talk to you again on the other side.