I'm Going on an Adventure

I’m Going on an Adventure
By Z Zoccolante

I’m going on an adventure and I’m going to bring . . . a cup of coffee.

Do you remember that game? I remember playing it in summer fun where we’d go round the circle trying to figure out the secret code so you could go on the adventure. So, if were the first person to start I choose the code – let’s say every item had to be something you’d find in a kitchen, or started with every next letter of the alphabet in order, A, B, C – I’m bringing an apple, a bonsai tree, a cat.

Then the person would either say, You can come, or You can’t come.

I think of this game like a sing song rhyme in my head as I’m packing for a new adventure.

As much as I love adventures, every adventure takes us into the unknown to some degree. As humans, our internal psychologically doesn’t immediately welcome change.

Adventure takes some degree of trust – in the world, in the goodness of people, in ourselves, but also in God.

Leading up to this adventure were lots of twists and turns, some things that didn’t settle well, further exploration of myself, and realizing that I’d have to learn a new job.

These things were challenges for me, like hiking uphill, and sometimes it’s really nice to coast. My friend wrote a great blog this week about saying yes to challenge. My favorite line of it was when she wrote, “. . . it’s about stretching beyond what I think I am capable of.” She said that she’s excited to see what’s on the other side of challenge and excited to meet the unknown parts of herself.

As I embark on this new adventure with its joys and challenges ahead I feel as though God has been preparing me to lean on him and to know for sure, for sure, that he has my back.

Since I love fairytales God speaks to me a lot in visualizations. This week I’ve been watching a dark show on Netflix with big beautiful foggy creepy forests. God shows me in this forest blindfolded and he’s holding my hand leading me through. He tells me to listen to his voice. And then at some point he’s gone. In front of me is screaming and there’s breathe by my ear as though some creature lingers in the dark waiting for me.

I see this like a movie and I know that everything in me wants to run. But then I remember that God instructed me to STAY. And so, I do even though I want to take matters into my own hands I was told to stay.

Then I see from above, as though it’s an aerial shot. I’m standing on a small rock on the edge of a cliff. If I move in any direction I would fall down to the rocks and the water below, essentially to my death.

And I realize that God told me to STAY, and that he does in fact have my best interest in mind. The creatures in the forest knew that and like they do in fairytales they try to get you to doubt what “God” said. Just one bite of this delicious apple. Touch the spindle, and on and on.

The truth is we never know what waits for us in each new challenge, in each new adventure of our lives, but I find myself writing this morning in my journal,

“Thank you for all the beautiful things that wait in the unknown.”

This includes all the physical things that we can see and touch, but also the ways in which we grow within ourselves and become the people that return from journeys having met different parts of ourselves, and as my friend said stretching beyond what we were previously capable of.

So here’s to my new adventure, and to yours, whatever that may be.