stolen...

from my friend nathan.... but he borrowed it from “through painted deserts" by donald miller. let me admit, i have not read that book, but i read this from the author's note... and loved it. realllly. loved it.

Everybody has to change, or they will expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons. I want to keep my soul fertile for changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person i was a moment ago, because my mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently. It frightened me to think of it, that I passed up and early marriage or children to write these silly books, that I bought the lie that the academic life had to be separate from relational experience, as though God only wanted us to learn cognitive ideas, as if the heart of a man were only created to resonate with movies. No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath…. And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beaultiful born inside of you, about learning to love… It might be a time for you to go. It might be a time for you to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: Leave. It is a beautiful word; so strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have to change.

especially the part about moving away from home- so i can come back and love it for so many more reasons. change is good. change is important. im not to worry. its time to grow and learn and become me. and im doing just that... and its good. so good.

love and peace.