Caution: Sharp Curves Ahead

 It's Thursday evening and I'm still pondering this past Sunday's message.  The sermon topic was Experiencing Life Through Death and covered John 12:12-36.  What a packed section of Scripture!  In particular, I've been really focusing on John 12:4:

 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

This past year has been one of pruning and changing seasons, but not necessarily death.  And as I ponder this - as I pray and seek about what in me needs to die to give birth to something new - I keep coming back to one word:

FEAR.

I've been developing this kind of crazy vision over the past few months, truly the culmination of a combination of passions that have grown over the past few years.  Of going back to school to earn a nutrition degree and of starting a holistic nutrition practice that focuses on helping individuals and families seek wellness.  Of teaching other's how to thrive with food allergies and illness.  Of maybe even adding fitness training or some culinary coaching.  

And I am so afraid I can hardly even begin to think about how to start.

I'm afraid of going back to school, of really putting my brain back to work.  Of the interaction with other students and of being in my mid-30's.

I'm afraid of starting a practice, of telling people how to eat and what to do.

(everyone I ever grew up with just laughed at that - because I've never really had a problem bossing people around)

I'm afraid of finding clients, worried that people won't like me.  

But I keep coming back to the idea of a wheat kernel falling to the ground and remaining a single seed (and yes, I find the fact that this verse is speaking to a fear that has been kindled in part by my inability to eat said wheat kernel a bit ironic).  Of what I could do if I can overcome that fear and the seeds that could be produced.  I think of other's like me, who struggle to figure out what it means to live with a medically restricted diet.  I think of families that want to change - to be healthier - but don't know where to begin.  And I think of what it has meant to my life to understand nutrition and the passion I feel when sharing it with others.

So I'm thinking, and praying, and researching schools.  Debating the difference between hands-on learning and distance, trying to figure out financing.  Contemplating what it will mean to our family to have another parent taking classes.

Putting fear to death, and waiting to see what grows. 

And getting ready for some sharp curves ahead. 

Comments

[chksngr]

Call me crazy, but it seems to me you are essentially already teaching, training, and coaching those of us who read your blog...so...in all actuality the first step has already been taken. God has already planted this kernel, my sister, and you have been been growing up out of the death of your old life and your old choices for some time. I'm so excited to see where God takes you on this journey!

[Samantha Widlund]

Hmm...never thought of it that way, but there is a lot of truth in what you wrote. It's that first "official" step that's got me scared.