The Spacious Life Part 5
"Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance." - Matsuo Basho
July 29th, 2024
Dear friends,
Change is both hard and wonderful, full of conflicting emotions that need to coexist. As newly launched global digital nomads, change is now our way of life. How we react to that change (and our ability to release the desire to control the outcomes) is our real journey.
Since we started making these plans (during lockdown), I've known this would be a pivotal moment in my life. Not only would my life change, but I would too. My hope and prayer continue to be that God will utilize this leap of faith to catalyze my evolution as a person— that this experience will shape and form me further into the person God created me to be, sloughing off the false (ego-driven) identities that I have built up over the last 43 years.
My desire in sharing an intimate picture of our travels— the incredible places we'll live (and the various cultural practices of rest and self-care), the interesting people we will meet, and the challenges and blessings along the way— is to inspire you to be strong and courageous in the face of your fears, knowing God is always with you. So we can dream God-sized dreams and watch in awe as He makes a way in our wilderness toward a more spacious life (more on that in next week's letter).
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." - Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV
It's important to me that our travels aren't presented with a false sense of reality by only sharing the good aspects; we get enough social comparison through our Instagram feeds. I plan to share with you what God is doing in and through me amidst the challenges and blessings of this global adventure.
After only two weeks of living nomadically, I am already keenly aware of some of these internal changes, knowing this is only the start.
By packing and moving the remainder (what wasn’t sold or given away) of our home into a storage unit, I learned a lot about my attachment to my things. I love my things, and I'm now learning to be satisfied with less. And that's a good thing because I only get one checked and one carry-on suitcase to carry everything that I will need—clothes, toiletries, yoga mat, water bottle, medications, and all of my work technology. And as we've found out, that also has to include a camping clothesline and laundry detergent sheets.
We're learning how to coexist in much smaller living spaces, including sharing a bathroom (which we have had the luxury of not doing over the last 15 years of marriage). We're redesigning our routines to suit our new environment and realizing that this process will have to be repeated every time we move to a new location, as each living situation will present unique challenges and benefits that we will have to adapt to.
God is teaching me that, like bamboo, I need to be flexible and able to bend without breaking. I'm learning what it means to be fluid and go with the flow in so many ways, and in doing so, realizing just how rigid I had become in the familiarity of my old way of life—something I will be "unpacking" for a while.
I am learning to be more adaptable to all of this change and am so grateful for this transition period in Salida, CO. Thank you, Jesus!
In Him,
Jennifer
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