October Skies

Oh October.  You’re back again.  I always know you’re coming, and yet, you seem to sneak up on me every year.  My what we’ve been through…

I once talked about having a band.  Not because I had talent to have a band.  But just because I wanted to call it “October Skies”.   (oh yeah right, y'all didn't ever want a band?) Because milestone are measured by things that happen in our lives.  Things that change the way we live.  And it seems like all my milestones happen in … October.

It was in October my parents were born, which… definitely signifies the greater things in life because then they met, married, and had ME of course…

It was in October my sister married her high school sweetheart. (this didn’t change me, I was still kind of a brat back then)

 

October 7^th (*cough) was when I drove into California for the first time to start an adventure of a lifetime.

 

October marked Planet Hope’s annual Camp for battered and abused women and children, the nonprofit I worked for while in Los Angeles for five years.  The people I give credit to opening my eyes to bigger, better, and greater things in the world.

October hurt me in 2009, as I found out I’d be forced to leave a company I unwillingly gave everything to.

 

And, yet, it was that same October that became a blessing in disguise.

And as the next October would have it, to the date on the 7^th, I finally made the decision to leave a world behind me.  To pack up what was left of me, and cross a bridge I so desperately needed to cross and headed out of Los Angeles for good.

October of 2010 would bring me to Nashville, change my heart, break my heart, heal my heart and burden my heart of everything that was to come in the next two years.

God gave me a vision stronger than I’ve ever felt when he gave me October of that year.

October 2011, He quietly planted a seed in my heart, when He mentioned me living somewhere I’d never been before.

 

And again, October 7^th of 2012 rolled around, and I ran my first marathon.

You see… October has a special place in my heart.  It always has.  And here, in 2013, my October brings me Africa.  It brings me, yet again, new life.  New opportunity.  A new heart, new blessings, opened eyes.

Today.  October 7^th.  As I walk to a school to bring creativity to kids who don’t think their world is as bright, who don’t think there’s much out there.  Who haven’t had a chance at more, a chance to dream.   

Maybe today, will be the start to their October…

I didn't get a band.... No.  But I still got my October Skies...