there is always something that lies ahead.  

A few weeks ago, I drove up the 5 headed to my newest home here in Seattle, WA.  This past summer my job took me up the 5 just about every day to the bridge bay road exit, but never past it, it was as far North as I was meant to go during the summer.  I knew that the time was coming for me to cross the bridge... to drive past the exit that i had grown so familiar with and head further North.  I would drive under the bridge in skiffy (the little fishing boat i drove on the lake) each week and would dream and wonder about the cars that were already headed that way.  Some days I was eager to join them... jealous that they were headed there before me.  Some days just the thought of moving further North scared me to death.  The bridge was a constant reminder that I would be driving on...

When it came time to cross I expected more emotion, maybe tears or something tangible to mark the move from one season of life into the next, or at least a bigger shift in scenery but to be honest it looked the same as the side I have grown so familiar with- just a little bit further up the 5 than before.

But slowly it did change.  Mountains came and then a time that fields calmly stretched over the flat earth and then to more hills and different kinds of trees than before.  It was changing- just slowly.  

Life for me has taken big steps forward.  A year ago today I left to join the Novas Project.  A journey that would lead me through Mexico, Uganda and Kenya. A journey that would lead me to meet people that would completely change my life.  A journey that would seem impossible in moments but would be accompanied by incredible joy.  A journey that would lay a firm foundation for the life that I am called to live.  I cannot put into words the growth and the change and the challenge that came from that one year.  

I don't think that as I boarded that plane it ever would have crossed my mind that today I would be living back in Seattle (a place I have wanted to move back to for the last several years...) Its hard to imagine that things will be so different one more year from today.  Its hard to imagine that I will be so different one year from today... I know that this year looks different than the last but it to is full of growth, change and challenge.

I did cross the bridge but I change just one day at a time.  I know this season is growing me and I'll be different at the other side.  I will slowly step into that new Cherise- the one that God is faithfully shaping me to be with each day that passes until he calls me to my completeness in Heaven with him one day. Its a beautiful journey that is going to take me to meet her.  Just in the same way that i wasn't in Seattle as soon as I crossed over the bridge- there was still so much to see before I got here.  So this year I choose to lean into the growth, change and challenge that lies before me (thank you Tag), and to embrace the journey that will lead to Heaven one glorious day.  

A journey filled with mountains and valleys and hundreds of new trees to discover.