I've heard it so many times....

"You can't steer a car that's not moving."

"You can't sail a ship that's not sailing."

No matter how you phrase it, the point is this: If you are stagnant, not moving, how are you going to know where to go? I have heard it a lot over this past year, and then heard it a bit more over this past week when visiting friends in Colorado. The reasoning behind it is understandable, and even more with getting used to driving a stick-shift car, but sometimes I get stuck in a rut of comfort.

Throughout this past year at school, I started to second guess the idea of going to grad school. Last summer, it sounded great! If I'm good at something (being a student), why stop? It seems logical, right? But then senior year started and I quickly started to burn out on academia and just lived for the weekend, the next break, the afternoon nap where I could shut off my brain...something that didn't require a lot of thinking of productivity. Some people would blame this on senioritis, or just laziness, and it could be chalked up to that in a lot of cases. But I notice a distinct pattern in my life: I like comfort! Comfort is awesome, and can be found in many places. A good cup of coffee/tea/hot chocolate, a good book/play, a favorite movie, your favorite scented candle, a fuzzy blanket, a good conversation, a prayer, a bear hug from a good friend, a back massage, a bubble bath.... The list could go on and on, and I definitely like comfort. But sometimes I wonder if this could be a bad thing. Everyone needs a little comfort now and then, but when comfort becomes the norm, does it lose its comforting effect? If you always watch the same movie for a sense of comfort, wouldn't it get redundant after a while, and not really comfort you when you feel like a tornado just destroyed your life?

Grad school had become a comfort idea. I mean, after 16+ years of school with high school and summer jobs sprinkled throughout the experience, school had become comfortable. Get up, go to class (if there was one before chapel), go to chapel, go to more classes, eat lunch, go to class, go to the dorm, work on homework or sleep, go to dinner/chill with friends, do homework, watch a movie, go to sleep (maybe). Repeat 5 days of the week, maintain a (not so) steady diet of cafeteria food, and *poof* you are a college student. After a while it just become routine. Predictable. You expect to have class in the mornings and afternoons, you expect to have chapel at 10am Monday through Friday, you expect to either spend time with friends or do homework over the weekend. It's all routine. Nothing by routine. Especially by the time of senior year. This is why I was hesitant to continue thinking about, and pursuing, grad school. Was I just wanting more routine? Was I just wanting more predictability? Those ideas quickly went away.

Now it's after graduation. I'm sitting here in my room, still unemployed, following the predictable schedule of volunteering at church with the music team and youth group. Why? Well, because I love volunteering in those positions. Also because some people would probably cry if I didn't help in some respect. But it's routine. If I could live like this for the rest of my life, would I? Nope. Because at this point, I have been so trained to be active, even if in a routine of the same approximate schedule every day, that I cannot stand sitting around home. "Get a job" some of you may be saying. Well, that's a bit easier said than done. In case you hadn't looked recently, the job market sucks. I mean, it royally sucks. "Something is better than nothing." Well, that may be true for some people, but I don't want to do just "something." I want to be a part of something great. Something awesome. Something so big that I know it has to be God orchestrating everything, and not me taking things into my own hands and playing with the clay of my future. Nope, I need to feel small (in a healthy way) compared to everything else in the world.

How does someone do this? They move to Colorado! "Wait, what?! I thought this was about grad school??" Well, it is....the grad school that I am really liking at this point is located in Denver. I have checked out the website, looked at the different programs they offer, and have now requested information. Yup. I'm taking a step and trusting that God will work out the details.

Remember, "You can't fly a plane that's not running." And I don't want to fly...I want to soar!