Comfort Zones Are For Outgrowing

It feels scary to step out of my comfort zone in life.  God has been gently inviting me to do so for years.  Naming our child Timon is way out of my comfort zone.  We are entering into the unknown territory of raising a multi-racial family - also out of my comfort zone.

Last fall, several months before starting the second adoption process, in more of God's amazing, mysterious ways, he made it clear that our second child was meant to have a different skin color than ours.  I used to be very afraid of this because of my own fears of inadequacy.  Am I big enough for this?  Strong enough?  Our family will be a "conspicuous family," stared at by many, judged (positively or negatively) by others.  Will we have what it takes to help our child navigate the confusing, tumultuous waters of building a sense of self in a color-conscious world?

Now I'm not so afraid.  God took me through months of naming these fears and, eventually, letting many of them go.  This doesn't mean that I won't have many more moments of thinking "this is too big for me."  But somehow now I am more able to trust that I don't have to be big enough.  I don't have to know how to do it "right."  Just like God knew Timon before he was even conceived, he has also known me and Micah since the beginning of time, and he will give us what we need.  Because he loves Timon more than any of us could imagine loving someone.  And he wants nothing more than for him to live a life fully alive, fully himself - both black and white.

As scary as stepping outside of my comfort zone may be, it feels so very safe here - in the center of God's will for our lives - exactly where we most want to be...even if it involves letting go of our own plans sometimes.  Life is full of these opportunities to let go of our own expectations and open ourselves to that which is MORE.  This precious experience has been one of many in which Adoption has revealed this truth to me and Micah.  I love it.  My heart races just thinking of it.

But you know I kick and scream at first when I'm being asked to leave that soft, cozy, BORING comfort zone of mine.  It's not easy for a control freak to let go, people!

Thankfully - mercifully - God knows me and knows what I need and, as Cheryl said to me, "He is ever so tender with our weakness."  So he gives me my second sign - because I'm little and he knows it and he is big and he loves me - littleness and all.

And I love him right back.