{What I've Learned About Being Vulnerable And Taking Risks}

 A dear friend reminded me that today is the 1 year anniversary of the blog. I'm glad she knew, because I certainly didn't. I'll be honest, I've been seriously neglecting the blog for the last few months but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things soon. So in honor of that,  today I started thinking back over the last year of the my life and this blog and about the things I've learned and experienced.

If I had to choose one thing I've learned the most in the past twelve months, its to be vulnerable and to take risks. Ok, maybe that’s two things. When I started writing this blog, I wanted to be open and honest about the things I was struggling with, the things I was going through, and the things God was teaching me. I knew that would be easy at times, difficult at others. Even in a time where everything about anything is on social media, I always want to put my best foot forward. So being open about struggles and difficulties here on the blog certainly puts me in a position of vulnerability at times.  But what I didn't realize was how much I would learn about being vulnerable and taking risks in my life outside of the blog.

I think for a lot of us, the word vulnerable has negative connotations.  It definitely does for me at times. But I'm trying to change my idea of that word because I don't think it has to be negative. I think that all too often we feel like we have to always be strong, always put our best foot forward, and we can't let people see our struggles because they might think us weak. But what's wrong with letting people see that we're human? The truth is, it doesn't matter how tough we try to make ourselves, we all have a breaking point. We all have things that are going to get to us, things that we're going to struggle with, things we're going to suck at, things people aren't going to like about us, but deep down, those are the very things that make us who we are.

To really know someone, to let someone really know you, we have to be vulnerable. We can spend a lot of time putting on a facade but at some point, we have to make a choice- either we allow people to see, and I mean really see who we are or we choose to never really know anyone. I don't know about you, but that's not how I want to live life. Whether it's in our families, our friendships, our dating relationships, our marriages, whatever it is, at some point we have to decide to let people see who we really are, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  When we make that decision to be vulnerable and to take risks, I think we really start living life. We start weeding out the people and things in our lives that aren’t good for us, and replacing them with the things that are.

For this first born, type A personality person, taking risks certainly doesn't come easy for me. For the first 25 1/2 years of my life, I was a planner (ok I definitely still am). Before moving into any situation, I face it head on, I weigh the consequences, I think through every possible scenario and outcome, and in a lot of those situations in the past, I've decided that the risk was not worth the reward. I wont say that doing that has kept me from living life, but I do think that it kept me from really being the person I was meant to be.

I've jokingly been saying for the past 7-8ish months that I'm in a rebel phase of life. But what I've realized in the past few weeks, is that I'm finally being who I want to be, fully being the person God created me to be. And that's a person who doesn't ALWAYS have to play life safe. It's a person that's realized that sometimes the greatest things in life come from taking chances. And sometimes the risk isn't worth the reward but it's still a chance worth taking.

I can almost pin point the moment in the last twelve months when things began to change in my life, when I decided that being vulnerable and taking risks wasn't necessarily a bad things. I can tell you that making that decision was scary and one that I put a lot of thought into but one that in hindsight I can tell you I don't regret. It was a decision that taught me a lot about myself and being vulnerable with other people, no matter what the outcome.

I've heard it said that the only things we regret in life are the chances we didn't take. I can't think of a truer statement for the last year of my life.  Life doesn't always turn out like we want it to. Sometimes being vulnerable and taking risks doesn't lead us down paths we THOUGHT we would take but that doesn't mean it wasn't a path we were meant to travel.

Vulnerability is not comfortable. No one wants to put themselves in a position where they can be hurt or where things seemingly fall apart. But what I've learned is, that's just living life. If we aren't ever willing to be vulnerable, we're never going to see the benefits that come from taking risks. Great things never come from standing in out comfort zones forever. Even as I write this, I think back to Peter walking on water. Sure, everyone wants to harp on the fact that Peter took his eyes off Jesus and started to sink. But what I love most about that story is that Peter was willing to get out of the boat. He was willing to take a risk and because of that, he saw great reward as he walked to Jesus on the water.

I don't want to be one of the 11 disciples left in the boat my whole life. I want to boldly go after the things God has for me in life. I want to be vulnerable and to take risks. I want people to know without a doubt that I care about them enough to let them see those things I'd most often rather keep tucked away for no one to know.

Most importantly, I don’t want to look back at any situation in my life and regret not taking a risk, not living life to the fullest simply because I was scared of being vulnerable and having things crash and burn. Will things always workout the way I want them to? Absolutely not. There will be things that I fail at, more than once I'm sure. There will be people who don't like me. There will be people that are better at certain things than I am. But if I've learned anything about being vulnerable and taking risks, I've learned that it's ok to fail. The journey, with it's ups and downs is what makes life worth living.

If you take anything at all away from this blog, I hope that you take away my encouragement to be vulnerable and take risks. I can almost guarantee that things wont always turn out the way you want them to but that doesn't mean you won't end up with something even greater. It doesn't matter if you're struggling with being vulnerable and taking risks in a relationship with a friend or significant other, a career move, or some other major life decision, in 10 years the things you're going to regret the most are the chances that you didn't take. Life is too short not to take chances and to always be afraid of being vulnerable. At some point we may not have another opportunity to tell people how we really feel or what we really want in life. We may not get another opportunity to take the job of a lifetime or to do that thing we've always wanted to do. So please do me one favor- take a risk, be vulnerable, and know that no matter what happens your journey is better for it.