OUTSIDE THE SAFE ZONE

One of my least favorite activities is moving. For some odd reason, going to a place that I have never been before does not sound exciting. In fact, for a control freak such as myself who thrives off of consistency, predictability and structure, it is terrifying.

I remember when my mother first decided to move my sisters and me to Oklahoma the summer before my senior year of high school. For a bunch of city folk from Chicago, moving to Oklahoma brought on culture shock.. I thought my mother had lost her mind.

In Chicago, I felt safe. I lived in an area where gunshots and drugs were not uncommon. Profanity, premarital sex, and other various compulsions were normal but in my mind that was my normal. After living there for 17 years, it was another part of the modern day culture that I expected to remain a part of my life.

After the move, I felt like a fish out of water and I soon began to realize that my idea of normal was not really normal. I learned that the hurts that I felt, the habits that I had developed, and my hang ups were not originally what God wanted for me. Obviously with the decision to move, my mom had not lost her mind, but in fact was being used by God to try and renew my mind.

I truly believe that God moved my family to help me become the person that I am today. I didn’t realize how hurt and broken I was, because in my previous environment, I felt as though that was all that I knew. Now I see that God purposely moved me from one environment to another to save and protect me.

At the time I could not see it, but the move brought me closer to Christ and introduced me to Celebrate Recovery. With God’s help through CR I was able to overcome a destructive habit and finally walk away from addictive and abusive relationships. By being pulled out of my safe zone, I was able I was able to step out into the unknown and become the person that I am today: happy, healed, and made whole.

Have been pulled out of a situation in which you felt comfortable? Is God pulling on your heart strings, trying to help you grow into the person he would like for you to be by changing your current environment? My advice is simple, seek God.

Give it up to Him and he will guide you exactly where he wants you to go. Jeremiah 29:11 reads,  ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’

Grateful Believer,

Gabby