Don't Be Afraid to Follow your Gut

I recently had the opportunity to go to this amazing intensive called Making Things Happen 2010.  My instincts were telling me to not miss this opportunity to meet and connect with a lot of people I admire.  My adrenaline was pumping and I was so so excited!  I would have never considered going except Emily Ley who works with Lara Casey called and offered me a partial scholarship to go.  I cannot tell you how excited I was because I didn't give them my number they found me.   But in order to go we would have had to pay for transportation there and a hotel in Chicago where it was.  When we were looking at tickets they still didn't have the location of the intensive secured.  That weekend was Jason's birthday.  Basically I had to make a choice.  I cannot talk to Josh about my remorse because he told me to go.  He would have taken off school and we would have drove to Chicago.   Do we spend the money?  Do we pack in the weekend and have this amazing spontaneous trip?  This intensive is exactly what I was looking for.  I have my own goals set for 2010 and finding a community of artists and creative people who would provide encouragement to reach my goals is so what I needed.   I listened to some advice that others were telling me, I weighed out all the things that would go into going, and thought about my life's ultimate priorities. I came to the responsible realistic conclusion that it would be better to not go.  WHY?  I knew in my gut that this experience would be completely worth the investment.  That the opportunity to do this doesn't come everyday; that I needed to just grab on and hold on and just enjoy doing something crazy and then reap the benefits.  Basically I didn't listen to my gut.   I'm not going to say I didn't regret not going because I'm writing a whole post on it.  But at the time I'm glad that we had that family time.  We had a wonderful weekend with our little family and with extended family to celebrate our little boy turning 5.   But I know I would have come back from that intensive even more pumped to jump into the year to reach my goals and celebrate what I was made to do.   I can only hope that some time down the road I will have another great opportunity to connect with people who are just as passionate about life as I am and to meet people that greatly inspire me to be who God made me to be, and to not be afraid to follow your gut.