IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEEP.

I want to tell you a story.

This tale is about a girl – a girl who stood on the shoreline of her own life, always too afraid to step into the vast, vast, vast and beautiful unknown.

This girl had grown up believing that playing inside the lines and staying safe were the keys to an abundant life, but as that girl grew, she found herself – more often than not – wondering why she always felt empty.

There, camped on the shore, she watched the dolphins play. She watched the fish glisten from the depths of the sea; blues, greens, and yellows, swirling and melding together – a dance unfamiliar to her. She gathered her knees to her chest and she watched, watched, watched. The girl wondered why life was so beautiful and majestic and wonderful for all of those around her, but so empty when it came to her own existence.

A life on the shore was all that she had ever known, and she was scared to admit that she was scared.

Terrified.

That’s what the unknown has the possibility of doing to you.

Constricting, confining, oppressing.

Like the weight of one thousand thunder clouds, fear presses in on every side and strips away every ounce of courage. It comes close – too close – and softly whispers in your ear that you’ll never be good enough, you’ll never be brave enough, you’ll never change.

This is who you are, fear tells you.

…but somehow the girl doesn’t believe the candy-coated lies, for the longing at the core of who she is, is screaming louder.

Freedom beckons her to rise, to leave her place on the shore and discover that the world is more than just this shore. So, the girl rises to her feet and dips her toes into the cool, blue waters.

For the first time, her eyes are awake, truly awake..and her thoughts run wild and vivid, her back strong.

The water called something to life in her, something that had been stuffed down and forgotten about years ago.

Hope.

As she waded deeper into the water, the fears began to wash away. Each and every lie she had been told about life and her dreams were left among the rocks at the waters edge. The past lay behind her and the unknown called out her name.

The girl discovered something that day. She discovered that as long as you let fear be what drives you –  fear of the unknown, fear of possibilities, fear of failure, fear of living up to everything you dreamed you could be – you will never leave the shore.

The shore is a safe place, but it is not where life exists. True life, the kind that awakens you and sings to your soul, can only be found when you step into the waters. A safe life is a hollow, void, unfulfilled life, and the girl found that out before it was too late.

Now the girl can be found playing among the dolphins and swimming among the beautifully colored fish, traveling to distant lands and far off places. and at the end of the day the end of her life, she will arrive back at the shore, who she now calls friend, and be thankful that she made the choice to live.

Because life looks a lot better in the middle of the deep, than from the shoreline.

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

– Andre Gide