Inherently I am not a big risk taker… In fact: I have had a theory for awhile now: that the past of least resistance is best. If there looks like there could be danger: I will choose to sit things out. You see: I have lived in a life of safety. I would prefer to be safe and in many cases I know the outcome before things even take place because there is very little risk involved.
Recently I posted about taking leaps of faith. The more I know about life and going through life the more I realize that life is extremely short. It’s so short that I have realized that sometimes you must weigh the risk over benefit… And sometimes amazing memories and experiences or crazy memories and experiences tend to outweigh the risk!
For me: going to Israel this summer made sense. It was something that when I got the e-mail that I was accepted as a student to go… I was extremely honored and totally pumped. There wasn’t much of a second thought when I accepted the trip. That is until I started to tell other people about the trip.
All of a sudden people started saying how they wouldn’t want to go to Israel and how dangerous it was and how brave I was to be going. All of a sudden I realized that I was actually doing something that might be potentially dangerous. Fear struck me and I began to freak out… What if this, what if that… I really wanted to go but was this really a good idea?
When doing the risk versus benefit it still makes sense for me to be on this trip. Reality sunk in when the shooting occurred in Colorado. After the shooting, my friend Marissa shared that one of her friends was in the very movie theater that the shooting occurred in. Actually, he was shot. Here in our own country, this horrible tragedy occurred. And I realized that if something terrible is going to happen it doesn’t matter where you are…
I realized that I can’t fear every single thing and though I can be smart with my actions: when it comes down to it… I can’t control the actions of others. So in the end: every single day is a leap of some sort. We are all taking leaps of faith, big and small to hopefully grow closer in deeper in our relationships with God as we trust Him to protect us and guide us.
And when bad things happen: may those be moments that we lean on God and not on ourselves and our understanding.
victoriaquinn 