Do it. Find the fun.

My incredible friend Laura Vandal Chancey gave me a little ceramic dinosaur she had painted green that has sat on my desk ever since. In the course of my numerous moves throughout 2009 the dinosaur has received a few knicks and scratches. I think I kind of like it (I just changed my mind completely right then. I just wrote "I don't like that" right before I erased it and wrote "I think I kind of like it")... gives him character and some little battle scars. He's so tough.

I'm currently writing this post to avoid going to the gym to run. Maybe I'll run after work tonight. High unlikely, but I guess it's possible.

Thinking about me changing my mind about my thoughts on the dinosaur scars made me start thinking about change and my life. Growing up, I always thought that I was someone who absolutely hated change. I use to cry when my parents even talked about moving away from Huntsville when we lived there because I so hated the idea of change. I'm beginning to realize that while I hate change in some areas of life, I require change and even seek it in other areas. This trait has become more and more evident in the past couple years when looking at my multiple jobs and living situations. And looking back at my life I see how often I sought out change while holding fast to the familiar in specific areas. I think the familiar that I held onto was relationships. I never wanted to lose any relationship, and my resistance to moving was really my resistance to losing relationships. Friendships. The familiarity and comfort of having people know who you are and you know them even if the activities of life around you are constantly changing is nice.

My tendency towards change regarding activities in life may be my desire to do everything that I enjoy, and as you get older you kind of have to choose what you want to do specifically (something that I definitely have a problem doing) so I just jump from one thing to another that interests me. Hmmm... this seems highly likely.

When I was young I used to draw all the time. Usually it was houses or theme parks. I would also sing constantly and act and sing in plays at church. I'd go diving at the pool or flip around in our front yard. I would play with k-nex for hours or just go outside and explore. I even loved going to school. I didn't miss a single day for something like 8 years in a row, because I wanted to be there. I loved having fun... all the time. And I was good at having fun. Really good.

I don't think much has changed, and I think I'm trying to figure out if it has to change. Can life remain fun forever, or does there come a point where we have so much responsibility and pressure on us that we're no longer able to have fun doing whatever it is we're doing? Is there a way to continue living a meaningful and impacting life while enjoying it fully? I sure hope so.

I do realize that not everything in life is going to be "fun." Much of life is difficult, and we have to work hard through things we don't particularly like in order to accomplish goals. But can't you have fun in the difficult, or is that just attempting the impossible?

I might seem flaky and disconnected from reality at this point, and maybe I am. I don't know. I just feel like we have the ability to live with so much joy, and we often (me included) allow the difficulties of life to steal our fun. Life is hard, yes. But the joy of going through life with Christ and experiencing what He has laid before us to enjoy is so much fun. So I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna have fun.

Did this post make any sense? I kind of rambled. Sorry if its completely incoherent.
Robby