Caution: Broken Girl Ahead

Evidently, when I signed up for this journey, I had no idea that it entailed a beautiful land, cool people, AND losing myself to who I thought I was.  This second month has been quite an emotional journey. A journey towards finding myself. I did, however, find myself in a book today. Boy, was that a relief! It’s like a doctor diagnosing your problem with a big, official, medical title, instead of hearing, “We don’t know what your problem is. Let’s run some more tests.” I really knew this was what was going on, but to read it in a book made me feel like my experience wasn’t necessarily normal, but real.

“It is imperative that we submit our lives to the hands of the Master Potter. We must allow the Lord to break us, refashion us, and if necessary re-commission us in a way more suitable for His purpose. If we miss this appointment on the Potter’s wheel, we are forever doomed to a life of mediocrity. If we make the connection, we will be transformed from glory to glory into the very image of Christ.” Larry Randolph, "The Coming Shift"

That's it? That sounds painful.

I feel as though my mind has been washed clean. Dumped out. Emptied. I was once full of experience, awards, and passion to lead others in the business world. I drove results, developed leaders and stood tall in my usefulness and success. Now, all I can execute are memories. That’s all that comes out. But the memories aren’t fulfilling me any longer. I am no longer me. Who I was is fading. I feel like a USB memory stick inside a non-compatible PC. All the training and developing of who I was in the business world is simply not converting to where I am.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding..." (Prov. 3:5)

I heard that Scripture the 2nd Sunday I was here. Little did I know that it was would be a huge, yellow caution sign that marked the road ahead. That scripture now rings inside this emptied mind. I always thought it was just a fun little scripture that reminded me to always get God’s opinion and perspective on whatever task/problem I was working through. Cute, huh? I am now living out and defining the deepest aspect of what that scripture could possibly mean to me.

"Lean not on your own understanding" = to have all of your understanding washed from you so you can’t even lean on it even if you wanted to.

I never knew my work defined who I was this much. That every part of my being was wrapped up in the success of my career. That is, until it was all removed. Every bit of it. A tall empty body is all that is left.

I am now officially broken wide open and am being re-built. This 6 foot girl is still growing.

I have been sent to an environment that is divinely orchestrated by God to break down my confidence in my flesh. And if I didn’t make this move to the other side of the world, then all that I once was wouldn’t continue growing anyway. The memories of the excitement and prestige that I can play in my mind would have ended in a life of mediocrity.

It's no longer about my performance, but about His grace.

A Bonzer Time

Why you should come to Australia! Check out this video.

Valentine's Day officially has meaning to me!  As of February 14th, I've been here one full month! How awesome is that?! (ha - and you all thought I met someone).

However, this 2nd month has been one of the most exciting and yet scariest times of my life. The roads and grocery store no longer scare me, but finding myself and learning more about who I am...that has been the scary part!

But, speaking of scary...I did almost get into my first bingle (Translation: "car accident"). No, it wasn't in a roundabout or turning into on-coming traffic (although I've done that too). It was much more intense than that. One thing you may not know about me is, when I moved out of Florida, I moved out because of the roaches. Yes. The ones that fly, the ones that live in pretty palm trees, the ones that literally make you climb on top of a table and scream like death is near.

I'll live with spiders, snakes, furry rats, but not roaches. Especially not the most hated roach of all - the German Roach, which I discovered, followed me to the other side of the world.

There I am, successfully driving down the street enjoying a breath-taking summer day when out of the corner of my eye I saw something run across the passenger side floor. Then my eyes met with his. He froze. I froze. It was him. The German! With one eye, I quickly looked to the seat next to me while my mind was chanting, "they're here! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!" With one hand on the wheel, I grabbed the only possibly weapon, my grocery list.  Then with one bend forward and a blood curling scream, I smashed him! Success! I won. I was victorious!

Remembering I was still driving, I continued on my journey glancing down every once in awhile to enjoy my grossed-out victory. However, there was one particular quality I forgot those things posses - they fake death really well. How do I know that? You guessed it, he was gone. The faker is still out there just waiting to plan out his next attack.

Enough about bugs...how about fish?

I had a fish swim past me while I was swimming laps in the pool the other day. That was truly an answer to prayer...not the fish, but the pool. One thing I quickly learned when I got here was that the $17/month I was paying for a gym membership in the States equals $17/WEEK here. So my options were to get flabby or find free ways to stay in shape. So, with my passion for swimming, I prayed that I'd find a free way to swim. With nothing but a big, free, open ocean in front of me, the sound of waves, currents, and small sharks made swimming laps feel slightly unappealing. 

So, I began accepting that I was just going to have to learn how to enjoy working out on dry land. But, driving along the coast back to our flat one day, Kelly told me about a rock pool that most of the beaches have. The city pumps in ocean water into this protected pool that sits right on the ocean. YEA! It was a miracle. The smallest things of my life are being taken care of.

Someone told me me they liked my accent. 

I wanted to quickly correct them and explain that it wasn't me that had an accent, but it was them that had the accent. I wanted to say, "We speak very plainly. You're the one with the cool swing on the end of each word you say." But I was in line at a barby (Translation: "Barbeque") and to prevent stopping up the entire que to the snags (Translation: "line to the sausages"), I smiled and kindly said, "Thank you."

It's funny what comes out of my mouth that doesn't make sense here...

I suggested to Drew, our business manager, "that wasn't a 911, so we can do that later." As soon as I said it, I realized that Australian's don't have 911. So, I paused, then corrected myself and said, "000." That's the the 3 most important emergency numbers to know. (Thanks Dad for quizzing me on that before you left. Very helpful.)

I'm also learning that my Bath and Body fragrances are very foreign here. I walked into an auditorium a few weeks ago and these guys in front of me said, "What is that sugary, cake smell?" Busted. It was my Special Edition Vanilla Yuletide Pear. In the States, the response would be more like, "Oh, what is that delicious Bath and Body fragrance I smell? I think it's the new special edition fragrance Yuletide Pear. How wonderful. You smell really good!"

It looks as though I have a few things to teach these Aussies.

PHOTO OPS!

The tall and cute Joel Houston at our C3 Conference. 

(This was where I wore my "cake" fragrance. Awesome!)

My super cool boss about to rock the stage at C3!

Kelly and I at the cafe downstairs under our flat. We went and splurged on breakfast.

Look!  The cockatoos are wild and all over the place!

I must say, all in all, having a BONZER time!

(Translation: I'm having a great time!)