August 3, 2003

It was somewhere between Odessa and Van Horn that I realized I am leaving my life. I really just gave it all up. I was laying in the back seat of the car while Robin drove. I was half asleep and very emotional from being exhausted. And I realized. Robin is dropping me off in LA. Crazy as it sounded, I almost felt like a prisoner—trapped in the back of a car—like the old days when I was 14 and being transported between juvenile halls with shackles on my legs. I began sobbing. I thought of the girls—my students—how hard it was to say good bye to them. What a perfect little life I could have had. And instead I am on my way to Pasadena, CA to live what I believe is a call from God. Let me tell you, you think you have faith until it is time to live it. We are almost to El Paso as I type this first section. The fact that we will be out of Texas soon is scary. No games here or candy-coated words. I am scared. I just gave up everything good for the unknown. And the hard part is that this was the happiest I ever was. I have never known such stability, happiness and healing as I did in Texas—and the last years in Tyler, especially. And now I am a prisoner in my own car.

Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance…

Later now and I am okay—emotion is to be expected, and yet God is doing something so massive that I know it might be a battle to get there at times, but all worth it. He is a good and faithful Father—and I learned that a bit more tonight—the hard way of course.

We are in a hotel in Willcox, AZ. We are already in the Pacific time zone. I will stay in this time zone. It is another time for me.

Monday morning: To Los Angeles and the Great Adventure (and Great Unknown)