Growing Pains

Today I want to discuss moments. Moments where you know you are no longer who you once were. Moments were you feel the growth of experience and life crash down upon you. Moments that while you are in them seem to pause time long enough for the full amount of pain to strike you, but it is from that pain that a new you is born.

Within the past three weeks I have had too many of these moments to count. I got the clear to leave, had my farewell Sunday, packed, bought tickets, packed more, said goodbye to dear friends and family, walked onto a plane, and left my home.

One would think that I would have been better prepared for these moments since I have known since high school that mission life is all I ever wanted. But I believe nothing can prepare one for the hardships of leaving the old life to start a new one. I had placed my roots deep within the lives of others. Handed pieces of my heart to people that now I had to leave. These types of growing pains are rare, and real. They leave their lasting scars. I cannot go back to who I once was, I can only go forward.

So onward I go. Step by step, each day with God walking before me. Time has started again. The pains have passed. Growth has occurred. A new and hopefully better version has been born. Possibly a version closer to whom God has created me to be.

There are dreams that I thought would never come true, I am now living. There are places I never thought I would be, God is now taking me. There are people I thought I could never leave, I am now learning to live without.

It is not easy, in fact most of the time it just plain sucks, but it is what is needed. God moves. God works. God pulls you forward and pushes you to become more than you even dreamed. Praise be to the God who does not let us stay in the compounds of our own comfort, but instead calls us from our ordinary to be His extraordinary.

wsl,

Mallory K. Kornegay