Imagine if you were a goldfish.  Life in a bowl.  Everything you could possibly need is there: water, food, some fun green plants, light, a place to swim around.  But at the same time you can look outside your little world and see possibilities, places you want to go, people you want to meet, things you want to accomplish.  You feel like life is one big staring contest: people constantly watching you to see what you'll do with your life...while all you do is just watch them back.  Perhaps life would be better out of your bowl, but what you don't realize is that you would never survive.  Outside of the environment that you've been placed you wouldn't have the water, food, fun green plants, light, and a place to swim around.  Sure you might have other things...but not what you really need for survival.  

Or what if your life was like this dancer's.  You are beautiful, graceful, able to perform in extraordinary ways that dazzle and amaze your audience.  But the whole time you're dancing you're on a wire.  As long as you can stay on that small thin line you're okay...but as soon as you make one small mistake you fall.  There is no room for error, no possible way that you can change your routine or improvise, no way to get down until you make it to the other side...or else you risk falling and failure.  Crowds of people watch you, stunned by your seeming ease and confidence, not knowing that in reality your heart is pounding, your palms are sweating, and your knees are shaking.  If you can just make it to the other side, you'll be okay.

In some ways, I am the goldfish and the dancer.  Sometimes I think being at home this long with not much to do gives me too much time to think and analyze my life.  Don't get me wrong...I love my life.  But at the same time it can be really awful.  Yesterday was an example of that.  I have super mixed feelings about going back to school this semester.  But I can't escape it...I'll be back on the Bryan College campus on Saturday, whether I like it or not.  I'm excited because it'll be a new year, new classes, new opportunities, new experiences and renewal of friendships.  At the same time all those things that are wonderful are equally frightening.  But I don't need to be apprehensive or fearful.  God is my sustenance, my contentment in the fish bowl, the steady hand and support on the high wire.  No matter how much I fear...God is there to guide and protect me.  I know all this in my head, now why can't it translate to my heart.