Challenges are something I enjoy. I love to push myself to be the best that I can be, and exceed my limitations. Bold, fearless, extreme, limitless, emotionless and completely independent. That is what has always defined a risk-taker in my book. I am now realizing that the total opposite can be true.

What if being a risk-taker meant showing weakness and vulnerability, and allowing myself to love? That completely goes against everything that makes logical sense in my mind. Yet, that is what God is asking me to do. He is calling me to be a risk-taker in a different way than I thought possible.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap i carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." -C.S. Lewis

In the end, it all comes down to whether or not I completely trust my God and Protector.

With absolute confidence, I trust, because the hands that hold the world are holding my heart.

To Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and
dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because
the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
has nothing, is nothing.