a town called selma

It's 7:45am and my mom is waking me up for breakfast with her. I roll over and drag myself out of my too-large-for-one-person-but-insanely-comfortable-so-I'm-never-giving-it-up bed and stumble down our delightfully creaky staircase. I fall into one of the wooden chairs around our kitchen table clutching the warm cup of coffee I just made. We sit and talk as natural light floods our yellow kitchen. As she takes off for work I will go off on a run. She drives and I run through our beautiful, wooded neighborhood. After I get back I put my tired body into the shower. I will then get dressed for the day, but not without standing in front of my overly full wardrobe wondering what in the world I am possibly going to wear. Once I've gotten dressed and spent the sufficient and unhealthy amount of time picking apart every visible flaw in the mirror, I may take off for work. I walk down our pathway, petting my dogs as I go, and get in my car. I drive out through our one-lane, country neighborhood and out into our small town. If I don't have work that day, I may lay around our house or get some things accomplished while remaining in a lazy summer haze.

I live such a comfortable life.

This past March was the 60th anniversary of the civil rights march led by Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama. Last year a movie was released chronicling the efforts of this march. I got to watch it recently. It was one of the most powerful movies I have ever seen. I felt such horror, shame, and amazement as I got to see a mere glimpse of what people have gone through to fight for what they believe in. It can make me ashamed of the comfortable life I live. A life that can become so absent of passion, so empty of fight, and so devoid of growth. In so many ways this is a beautiful life. I have a life full of love, grace, and depth. I have been so blessed. The largest amount of persecution I experience in my life comes often in the form of mere discomfort. Moments where I feel out of place or insecure. They are brief but stay with my consciousness. It can make me fearful of small things. Fearful of little moments where I must be different, little moments where I am highlighted, spotlighted, or simply looked at. This comfortable life can make it easy for me to not only hide but desire to hide. Now the romantic, superficial side of me can look at this and be scared that I won't be remembered. I can become scared that people won't look at me and think that I am going somewhere, doing something, and accomplishing things. However, that is a temporary mindset. I don't want to be remembered for what an impressive human I was. I want to be remembered for a soul full of love and passion because it was full of Christ. I want to do things for Him. I want to spread love and hope and passion everywhere as an extension of the love and hope and passion that comes from my Lord. I am so weak and fearful without it. I want to accomplish something with my life because it was given to me by God, not because I don't want to see it end without anything to show for it. I want to live a full life. A life so full of love, grace, and hope that I must pass it on to others. I don't know and honestly can't imagine how this mission will manifest itself. Overseas, in Hillsborough, in Wilmington, or anywhere else but I hope and pray that it does. I hope and pray that whatever I do in life I will constantly strive to make the mundane into spiritual, the everyday into extraordinary, and the unspiritual moments into moments full of grace.