Day 11 :: It starts in your head.

Yesterday was hard. One of the hardest days yet.

[Which is funny because a) I didn’t leave my home and b) I didn’t see a single human except my flatmate and the FedEx guy.]

As I’ve said before, if I’m not honest in this journey, then I shouldn’t write about it at all. So here I am. Being honest and saying that I am struggling with being away from home.

[I love Edinburgh. I love my friends. It’s not about that… don’t equate struggling with being away from home with being unhappy here. They are not the same. Ok… carry on.]

I put in a few hours a week doing some work for Mocha Club and we had a BIG! IMPORTANT! staff meeting Monday. And I skyped in, which is great. Yay for technology. But big decisions need to be made and I hate that I’m not there. And truthfully, so do my co-workers.

Monday was the day when a few different people said things, each reminding me that my move to Edinburgh doesn’t just affect my life. It has affected a lot of lives.

[I’m NOT saying I’m a big deal… I’m saying I’m a puzzle piece. And anytime you remove one puzzle piece, it affects the rest of the puzzle.]

I sacrificed. But so did my family. And so did Mocha Club. And so did my roommate in Nashville. And so did my church. And so did a few other random subgroups.

I wrote a check that we are all paying.

And on Monday, I had to be brave.

I had to be brave in my mind. Because as we all know, the battle starts there. 

I can’t let myself start to wonder if I can change my flight. I can’t let myself listen to the guilty thoughts that say, “this is harder on your people in the USA than it is helping the people in Scotland.”

My mind has to be tough.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to that dream I had about October. The Bible says [in Philippians 4] to think about good things – noble, right, true things – and to cling to those.

That’s what a brave person does. A brave person clings to every last thread of truth.

It would be easier, at this point, to start a GO HOME COUNTDOWN. It would be easier to start talking to everyone about what Nashville will be like when I get home. It would be easier to just pop onto an airline website just to see what it might cost….

But I won’t. I’m braver than that.

I will be fully here. I will LIVE in Edinburgh. I will love my friends here deeply, knowing that every day is a gift. I love love love living here. I love the weather and the accents and my pals and my flat and public transportation. I will remember these things. And in the words of my friend Sara, I will choose joy.

Making that choice is choosing courage.

And then I have to trust God with the rest. Ya know? I mean, I have to believe that if He called me here, it’s the best place for me to be.

And I will. Because it is.

It just isn’t easy. It certainly didn’t feel easy yesterday.

But courage is fighting the battles in your life AND in your mind. If you can win in your head, you can win in the world.

And you’re a winner. So…. there’s that.

. . . .

Are you fighting a battle in your mind? How do you win?

. . . .

Who I’m reading: Emily’s 31 Days to Change The World. She’s good, y’all. Real good. I trust her thoughts on this topic because she has definitely changed my world.

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