Holding Fast and Pressing On in the Unfamiliar

I am currently in Colorado getting our daughter.  She stayed in Colorado when we moved to help out family here.  It is good to be someplace familiar.   I have been pondering the past 8 weeks of being in a new place.  It is a place that is unfamiliar.  The scenery is unfamiliar, the people are unfamiliar, the church is unfamiliar, the base is unfamiliar, and I can't even go the Commissary and walk right to what I need because it is unfamiliar.  Now I am not saying the unfamiliar is bad it is just...well, unfamiliar.  We as humans like our rut for the most part.  We want things to "feel normal" in at least one area of our life.  Since so much is unfamiliar I want to find a way to make it familiar.

How do we make the unfamiliar familiar?  We pay attention, we make sure that we give attention to the unfamiliar to make it become familiar.  Fear will stop the process of becoming familiar with something.  We need to be discriminating in what we chose to become familiar with but choosing to look at everything that is unfamiliar as scary or wrong or not worth it because, "I don't know it," robs us of a great amount of joy.

 As I pay attention to the scenery where I live now I see the beauty of God creation which is familiar.  I am now familiar with the covey of quail that forage in my back yard, the rabbits that come to my front lawn in the evening to be cool, the sunsets on the mountains, the doves that nest in the trees.  These are now familiar.

I have purposed to give attention to the new church we are attending.  I am looking at how they do things without comparison to my former church.  I am attending Bible Study and Financial Peace University at church and Caleb and I went to Wednesday night dinner to become familiar with the church and its people.  It is scary to not know anyone, to walk into Bible Study where there are over 85 ladies in attendance when I am accustomed to about 20.  I can be critical about what I am not "used" to or I can embrace the experience and chose to be joyful about the adventure.

I see so many people who become anxious, frustrated and bitter when they are forced to encounter the unfamiliar.  I look at the Patriarchs, the prophets and the disciples and how God constantly had them in the unfamiliar and they were successful when they embarced  to make it familiar.  God does not want us to live where everything looks the same, is the same, feels the same because when we do we do not grow.  God wants us to become like His Son which I know for me is unfamiliar.  Every time I chose to do something new like go to a new study, meet a new person, go to a new doctor, take a different route or change my routine I am learning to become familiar with the unfamiliar and when I do that I can chose to be more content and more joyful even in this world of the unfamiliar. 

Holding Fast and Pressing On
Teresa