“Keep walking as long as you can, then take one more step.”  That has been my philosophy for the past 2 years.  The hardest and most challenging can be the “one more step.”

We all have a choice, to take a chance, to change.  If we don’t change, we don’t grow.   Oh… we can rearrange the proverbial box over and over thinking that we are making some great strides in our life, but really… we are just in denial about things we do not want to face.  To change, we need to take the lid off and breathe new air, new life to our boring tired existence.  Because really, we have just been existing.  Is that you?  Do you know of someone like that?  Sadly I do.

If we want to be happy, we have to take the time to learn who we are.  Most of us won’t waste the time to look into ourselves; to dig deep.  Because if we do, we might not like what we see.  But to grow we need to see the good with the bad.  So… when you take the lid of your box, (you know, the one you’ve been living in) it might be a bit scary.  Not Halloween scary, or spooky scary but scary non the less.  You have to face what you see, experience, feel.  You cannot run away or back into your box, that is the easy way out and what a lot of us do. We let our fears drive us and sometimes define us.   We go back to our comfort zone and we don’t deal with our shit.  And so, there we are again, back to rearranging our box and pretending that we have changed, progressed, moved one; whatever you want to call it.

I know I have made drastic changes in my life.  The lid came off immediately.  I wasn’t going to stay locked up in a box alone.  I knew I had to find myself.  It took time and that “one more step”  many times.   I made the choice, and I took the chance, to change my life.

I find myself at a crossroads again.  I’m still living way outside of the box, but I feel an emptiness in my life.  I need to push through any fears I have and just go for it.  So I applied to teach in Africa; yes Africa.  It is a bit scary, but exciting at the same time.  I feel it is the adventure I need to move even further in my life.  It’s that “one more step”  and as I said, it can be the hardest one.  I will be away for 2 years.  I can come back once a year.  I feel it is the direction that God is wanting for me.

As  much as I would love to share my life with someone, I feel it isn’t in God’s plan right now.  Going to another country, somewhere I do not know, will allow me to find more of who I am.  I trust in the Lord and that he knows what is best for me.

So… if you want to change your life look for the good things God has put in front of you and more will come your way.  You have to find your happiness from within; until you do, you will just be rearranging the inside of the box.

Keep hiking to the top,

Kimberly Rae