I'm sorry, what?!?

I just finished filling out my acceptance info for Mars Hill.
I've read through the new student info, and the intro letter was the first thing to bring tears to my eyes. Bear with me as i share some of the language that sparks my heart and soul:

exhilaration and anxiety....walking away from the predictable routines of the life you have built and taking the leap of faith into the disruption, the transformation and the training rigor of graduate education....It is the rare courageous (and perhaps sometimes foolish?) heart that God calls into such absurd, life-displacing processes. And it is those very women and men, whose hearts can most tolerate the tumultuous upheavals of life, that God makes best use of to bring the Kingdom of God to life....the toughest and most worthy decisions in life are those that merit the agonizing wrestling with angels....in the pursuit of something far greater-the hope of transformation.....their own and the world's....a journey through your time here....passion wrought through real hope....the community experience of transformation.

Later on one student talked about being drawn with hope to a place where her whole heart might be welcome.

And, perhaps it's my own fault, but i don't feel like I've heard or spoken this kind of language in a long time. Hope, transformation, courage, upheavals, wrestling, the journey. I was there once, in that language, free with my heart and standing in the place between broken and walled up. But it has been a long time since i stopped and faced my own heart, much less thought it would be welcome somewhere else.

I can't imagine going anywhere else.

But it has been fear that has kept me from this moment. Fear that scares me when i think of leaving my home in Colorado. A fear of going back to school. Fears of leaving family. Fears of being a poor student again. Fears of the struggle of learning to be a counselor and once again dealing with my own issues. Fears of moving on alone-without a roommate, partner or family.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single
step.
Confucius

i had a card once that showed a tiny penguin escaping from the zoo. The quote read something like "Courage is taking the next step." And if i surrender today, then my job is to run forward into what i have been called to do-grad school, in Seattle. Just like Lucy was responsible for what she had heard and seen with Aslan, I too need to run forward in surrender and not stop to worry what anyone else may say or think, the questions that will come, the doubts others will have. It may cost me everything. Who knows where i could end up if i don't listen now?