Tired of Being Comfortable

This post is difficult to write simply because it is difficult to explain the changes and emotions we have felt the past two weeks. I guess the easiest way to sum it up is to say that we are looking at our lives completely different. If I had to sum up the past 3 years, I would say that we were "comfortable". We have had some struggles and failures, but overall it is easy to say that the past 3 years have been good years. However, I don't think we were "moving forward" so to speak. We were kind of stuck just being comfortable.

Deciding to do foster care was the first thing that we've done in a while that doesn't really make sense to us, but we know we need to follow our hearts. And wow, every aspect of our lives have been touched since. It is easy to say that we have grown spiritually over the past several weeks. More than that though, we have grown as individuals and a family.

Separately, Adam and I have both had some strong realizations the past two weeks that were very similar. Adam realized that he was not carrying out some of his dreams because he felt they were not realistic; too much work and no time; or he was afraid of the dream in some aspect. This is not someone who he wants to be, but it someone who he has become -- comfortable.

As for me, I was thinking about some of my "wishes", and I realized for the first time in my life that we only have this one life on earth to live. I am terribly afraid of death of myself and my loved ones. It is my biggest fear and causes me great anxiety. However, never have I thought about how this is the only life on earth that I will live -- I won't get a chance to be in my 20s again. I keep saying stuff like "one day, I'd love to . . . " or "I always wish I had . . ." In the past, I've never been too devastated by these statements because I feel like "it will happen one day". However, as each day passes, and I'm not trying to attain my goals, I'm losing opportunities and not following my dreams. I was comfortable.

We live great lives. We are so lucky and so blessed, and I can honestly say I love my life! But there is a reason that we dream! There have been some dreams we have attained that I never thought were possible. We've been in a rut the past few years, and this is just simply a fresh start again. We are making our good lives even better.

Again this is really hard to explain these feelings without sounding too cliche', but we both have been feeling them very strongly -- and separately. Our lives are changing. We have goals and dreams for our personal life that we now have plans on accomplishing. Those plans may change along the way, and we are open to that -- but we need to keep moving forward. We need to try to attain our dreams! We have business goals that we always want to happen, but some seem too daunting or too large -- but now, we are making plans. We are moving forward. We have curiosities that we don't pursue because we are too scared. Not anymore.

While some of these dreams are private, most of them are not. We would like to share one with you tonight. For different personal reasons, we have agreed to mark "no" on the question regarding accepting special needs children. We both have fears regarding this, and we have never dug deep to find out if these fears are selfish or something real that we aren't equipped to handle. Adam was the first to mention tonight that he would like me to think about changing that answer to "yes". He has realized that his fears are simply selfish, and he wants to help all children in need. It doesn't mean we would get a special needs child, but if we mark "yes", there is a possibility we could. The answer "no" has always come so easy to us since we began our adoption process, and now we are re-thinking that decision. We don't know what the right answer is at this point in time, but we ask that you pray for us while we make this decision in the coming weeks.

I hope this wasn't too confusing our jumbled. We are just excited by this fresh outlook we have on our lives, and we hope to inspire some of you by it! If you have a dream, find out if you can reach it. It doesn't mean your life isn't good now, it just means that you might be able to make it even better. I think the past few years has made us a little afraid to fail, and if we are afraid to fail, we will never know success.