It’s a short update this week, and admittedly vague, but I actually learned the most in the fourth week of the challenge than in any of the previous weeks. This post is very much a follow up to last week’s on finding direction; if you have a moment, please do give it a read as it will give some further context to what I’m talking about here.

I’ve been contemplating on the words of my mentor regarding God ordaining the recent events of my life to draw me closer to Him, and to move knowledge from my head to my heart. Something I think that needs to happen in this is also taking action on ideas that have been in my head for more than a year.

Almost two years ago, I had a dream that didn’t make any sense to me at the time as it involved me doing things I didn’t have the skills for. This dream freaked me out for a number of reasons, the most primary being that it involved public speaking. Up until fairly recently, I was one of the worst public speakers you’d ever see. I could barely string together a sentence when people were watching. Once, my friend (and former supervisor) Richard counted more than 40 “uhs” and “ums” in a 5 minute report. In college, we always used to make fun of how awkward my hand gestures were during presentations (it was like I was beating eggs the entire time).

In January 2008, I joined Toastmasters at the request of my employer, and I’ve actually become a good speaker. Not brilliant, by any stretch, but I can definitely hold an audience’s attention. I’m honestly not ready to talk about what that dream was yet (publicly), but I can say that public speaking is no longer the issue it was for me.

This week, I’m taking a step in faith and sending an email that I probably wouldn’t have sent if it hadn’t been for Chris’ encouragement. This is a scary thing for me to do, as I don’t know what the outcome will be. Maybe nothing. Maybe something big. I really don’t know.

Only time will tell.