Take a chance on you

​I wrote this several years ago. It resonates with me this morning:

"Faith is casting my line and trusting that I have no idea just how beautiful fishing can be. It's recognizing that I only really have control over the casting, the catching is usually in some greater hands and heart than mine. A heart that time and time again has showed up to say, I bet you never imagined catching something this beautiful."

Unless it's the lottery, we aren't often big fans of chance. Can you imagine what might happen if we all took a chance on ourselves as often as we take a chance on a bunch of numbers on randomly drawn ping pong balls matching the numbers we're holding in our hand?

Chance means I don't know the outcome. But we are creatures who migrate to spaces where we are most able to control the outcomes.
We want to fish where we know we will catch fish. And maybe sometimes we catch fish there. But is it at the expense of missing out on the beauty of a catch that might come from fishing in a place where it feels unlikely to catch anything at all?

It's one thing to be cautious in life. Some places are dangerous to fish. But it's another thing to never go fishing at all, because what's the point; I'll never catch anything anyways.

If you go into the world today visiting the ponds you have frequented most of your life, your life will likely end up looking like it's looked most of your life.

Maybe some of you are reading that and thinking, I can accept that. I am content with my life. To which I will say, you are blessed and I celebrate where you are.

Some of us, though, feel like there is something else out there. Something more. Something waiting to capture and reveal the very best of who we are; the feeling of being an undiscovered secret maybe? Some of us languish over a lifetime of unwillingness to take chances out of a fear that our chances will look like failure - again - and not beauty.

I think, though, that the secret to fishing is rooted in possibility. It's rooted in not knowing if that big one is in this unchartered spot, but today I'm chartering this spot simply because it just might be!

I think the joy of fishing might come as much from knowing I believed strongly enough that I might catch something in this unfamiliar spot, so I fished here, as it comes from actually catching something.

Don't be afraid of visiting new ponds this week, of taking chances. After all, we only have control over the casting, the catching is often in far greater hands than ours anyways.

But we owe it to ourselves to do our part.

We owe it to ourselves to take a chance on us.

Because where we least expect it, that is often where we find ourselves.