If you would have told me back when I was growing up and foreseeing my future in all it's utopian potential that I would be living in a semi-small town in Central Virginia call Lynchburg, I would have had to laugh in your seemingly lying, time-traveling, future-knowing face. Alas, here I am and have been for going on seven years now (that's one year in dog years).
I don't think I would have ever chosen this place, but the people I have met and come to love, the experiences and sights, and the space to explore the person God has created me to be has been invaluable. I got my education here and assumed I'd be leaving post-haste upon graduation, and yet God had other plans and I've been working full-time at Blue Ridge Community Church for almost 3 years. It's been a wild ride, living in many different places with a plethora of roommates, road trips to here or there, a handful of jobs, but somehow in all of it there is purpose. There is a plan for me.
I have spent time on the internet researching other areas like New York City, Austin, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and so on. In doing so I've tried to peer into what God may have ahead for me, trying to look around the proverbial corner. I at time covet the creative communities like NYC and Austin. I read on twitter about the meetups with fellow creatives, cowork spaces, big design firms doing incredible work, the never ending lists of arts shows and galleries to explore, and yet here I am in Lynchburg, Virginia all the way from California. Here I am.
Am I missing out? Am I just treading water when I could be climbing to the diving board? Did I settle? Did I miss my true calling? Am I wasting my life and slowly becoming irrelevant in a non-stimulating town? Questions like this could flood my mind, if I didn't have this one thing: peace from God. Call it what you want, but I know that for right now I am here for some purpose, and whether or not I know what that is or not doesn't matter, because here I am. And for what it's worth, I want to make the most of it while I'm here. This doesn't mean I'm stuck, it just reminds me that though the grass may seem greener on the other side, there's more I can do to water, nurture, prune, and better the grass I have between my toes right here where I am.
I wouldn't be me if I wasn't where I am now, but I hope I can look back on "here" someday and say I am not the person I was then. I want to always be growing, not just getting better at doing the same thing over and over again, but growing. Moving ahead, failing at times, taking risks, putting it all on the line, but being able to look back and say I did my best for a purpose bigger than just me.
I could make the excuses that I'm not stimulated here or that I am not going to reach the potential of being the designer and creative that I hope to be in a place like this, because I don't have the right people to push me, or I am not always surrounded by creative people that 'get' me. That's crap. All that is just excuses. Anything worth doing takes effort, and nothing is entitled to me. I have to chase down the dream and have passion. I can't wait, so I won't. Starting now.
I will make the most of everyday, create, and press forward. I will fight through resistance that will always do everything in it's power to restrain us all from moving forward in life. Let's do this.