Expectant Not Expecting

In a mere 24 hours I will have landed in the great state of Colorado for a much needed vacation getaway. I'm saying goodbye to Ol' Virginia for 8 days and hello to those beautiful Rocky Mountains. My heart starts to race just thinking about the majesty that I will behold. I will be staying with a dear sister-friend who is originally from right here in Virginia Beach. Just so happens that the week I threw out to her in hopes of my visit, with less than a months notice, is the only week she doesn't have anything she is committed to with her job. Can you say perfection? So I booked my ticket on July 3rd and didn't look back. Uncertainty is a funny thing. Sometimes the planner in me just has to make the leap, take the step, or make the drive half way across the country to realize although I didn't have it planned out, the Lord certainly did.

Why Colorado you may ask? Well, it helps that I have 5 friends who live out there already. But, other than having connections I felt the pull. I've been to Colorado 6 times growing up. Ski trips with the youth group and a couple times with my family for vacation and my dad's job related travel. The last time I was in Colorado was 2 years ago. I spent Christmas in a cabin with my family. I've only been during winter and fall so being there in the summer is going to be a treat!

I want to find myself humbled. I want to be overwhelmed by experiencing creation in it's rawest and purest form. I'm going back to The Garden. This is a concept I have talked about here before and it's one that I think I will always hold on to. As an artist we can find ourselves overstimulated and overwhelmed with creating. Well, I have something to add to that. As an artist sometimes I can find myself uninspired and seeking purpose. Getting back to "The Garden" is in a sense saying that as an artist, especially as a Christian, I desire to be reminded of why I create in the first place. Getting outside and experiencing creation at it's foundation can be rejuvenating, encouraging, motivating, and affirming. I'm looking forward to, in a sense, a week sabbatical.

So now I get to the point in the blog where I explain why I chose to title this post "Expectant Not Expecting." I'm going into this trip with an open mind and heart. I want to be expectant of great things during my time in Colorado and expectant of great things to come. What I do not want is to go in expecting certain selfish desires. I don't want to find myself expecting because if I try to plan out what I want to happen and it doesn't happen that way then I stressed myself out and put my heart in a place to be let down. This goes for the plans that are made for things I may do while I'm there and it goes for the way that the Lord is going to work on me while I am there. The only things I am expecting while I am there is to experience the Lord and His creation alongside my beautiful friends, That's it. I'm keeping it simple. I want to leave as much room as possible for the Lord to take control.

I hope to be sharing some of my time with you all here. I'll also be posting photos on my instagram and snapping some of my trip. If not, then I will have plenty to share when I return.

Freely, Gabrielle

& with that I leave you with this picture from my last vacation in Iceland

Back Seat Reflections

I’ve expressed before how I often times surprise myself with the wisdom that comes out of my mouth. A lot of times this happens when I am sitting down with a friend or my mentee and I am looking to encourage them or I’m asked to give my opinion on something. I came slumping into this current week off of the last week where I was left pretty emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. This past Saturday provided me with the opportunity to go to therapy…aka I got to hit the road to South Florida for 5 days. Travel may not always be cheaper than therapy, but for me it certainly seems to do the trick; and I quite enjoy getting to hit the road rather than laying on a fainting couch amidst all the junk I may be working through. I’m not running from problems but putting some space between myself and the place that often is associated with them. 

Usually I am on the road by myself and I have found that most of my travels provide me with the opportunity to gain a greater perspective on where I am in life and my spiritual walk. This time I hit the road with 4 of my co-workers for a conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. And the angel chorus sang. I had my hand at the wheel a couple times and then spent most of it as a passenger passing the time. I write to you from the backseat of a 7 passenger mini van, cruising 95N through North Carolina. The sky is a bit heavy in places and the trees line the left side of the highway as pastures line the right. I simply adore my time on the road, it’s the place where I can remember doing most of my daydreaming as a child. I wish it would rain so I could race raindrops down my window as I once did. 

I spent most of my time Sunday through Wednesday in sessions for work learning more about my place in higher education as an Christian Enrollment Counselor. I took the teachings as things that I could of course apply to my current work but also saw opportunity to take from these sessions tools and learns that I could use in the future for whatever I end up doing with my life. In my spare time I did some reading. I honestly wish working everyday was broken up into more than two parts of the day, before lunch, and after lunch. I think breaking up the day into sessions would make me a bit more productive and then maybe I could even suggest breaks for tea and coffee and maybe a good 30 minutes break for pleasure reading. Something to break up the monotonous schedule that is working in an office 8 to 5. 

I hit a break-through moment on Tuesday just around dinner time. After my last session of the day I gave my girl Kadi a call because I would be meeting up with her in Savannah, Georgia as we made our trek back to Virginia Beach. As we were catching up over the phone I told her that I felt like I was under some serious spiritual attack last week. (Side-note: Just got the most glorious whiff of burning brush…one of my favorite things). We talked more in depth about it but I will just skip to the conclusion I came to with the help of this beautiful friend of mine. I hadn’t given permission or space for failure in a certain area of my life. The usual assumption is for anything you want to be successful you need complete control or as much as possible to see that whatever it is becomes a success. If you are unsure of something wouldn’t you want to have as much control over it and it’s influencers as possible? Well, the hard part is when you try to control something that you can’t. This causes major anxiety because there’s no formula, there aren’t any guides or step by step instructions to guide you along. The unexpected will happen. It must. There’s no way to be fully prepared, and like I said in my last post, I wouldn’t want to live a life fully prepared. 

So here I am in the midst of the revelation that all of my anxieties I had were because I was trying to figure out how to fix something that’s not broken, prevent things I cannot foresee, mend the past when it’s long gone, or control something that is doing just fine on it’s own. BOOM. What. Yeah. Anxiety can influence one to take control, and it can become a result of the attempt. It’s pretty much something I think we all deal with at one point or another. This rings especially true for all those detail oriented and planning people out there. You know who you are. I know I am. Sometimes planning and details can get in the way of faith and I have definitely been challenged in this over the years. I have a pretty good grasp on not being able to control the future that is a year down the road or more but have more of that struggle of control over the present and closer future. Again, it all comes back to opportunity. This time, I’m sitting down to document my failure to fix, prevent, mend, and control which in turn will lead to stronger faith. I think I would rather have a faith that is stronger than my own control.