Hope, Fear, Change, and Rainbows

I'm not one to embrace change. In fact, I run from it like it is a deadly disease out to eat me alive. Because frankly, it sits as comfortably with me as a pair of jeans that are 2 sizes too small - I can't even breathe. But, as I grow older, as I move on from my own mistakes, and as I learn from others' wisdom around me, I realize that change is inevitably uncomfortable. Painful. Especially if it is good change, the kind of change that challenges and grows you as a person, the kind of change that makes you better.

The last few days have all been about change. They have been about confronting certain things I have been afraid of wanting - business wise, and life wise. Big things... like big scary kind of goals that seem almost impossible. But I learned that it is okay to want them...and that I need to be bold in taking that step and actually start chasing after it. For real.

As I was driving this weekend to where I was going, I had the pleasure of being on the road when the sun was in the process of rising. And as I saw the gold slowly spill over the horizon, what eventually grew into view was a perfectly arched rainbow that was so big that its ends spilled out over the edges of where my sight ended. And it was perfect. I'm not sure what the world's symbolic significance of rainbows are, but being a Christian, I grew up learning and knowing that God's meaning of rainbows in the bible are for hope, and promise.

So while I sit here in my $79 a night motel, on the bottom mattress of this white bunk bed while the TV plays some cheesy late night talk show, I am excited about change... about the plans and dreams that have been scribbled down this weekend, which I hopefully will share with all of you as this year slowly unfolds. I am still a little nervous to hope, and not just because the things I am hoping for are so big, but because hope is often that double edged sword that can inevitably bring disappointment too, and disappointment scares me. And that just makes me feel stupid for wanting in the first place. But no great thing has ever happened, or blossomed sitting in a place that is too comfortable. Or worrying about what others think.

So here's to a 2010 that is full of change, realizing hopes, chasing after big dreams, and making them real.

My hope is that when I am sitting on the other end of this year, and having to think back how it has all unfolded, I can share with all of you something wonderful, instead of sitting in regret of wasting another year just wanting but never doing :)

Stay tuned for some fabulous changes happening this year! Tears and all! ;)