Why Not?
This is a very special week for our family! Our beautiful daughter Arah Noel graduates with her bachelors degree from Belmont University! We are very proud of her and all of her hard work and achievements. I’m honored to have her share on the blog today! Hope this blesses you!
Why not? A simple, yet possibly life changing, question. Why not? That is one of the questions I’ve learned to constantly ask myself. It has given me an entirely new perspective on dreams, circumstances, desires, and life decisions. It makes them seem daunting yet so simple. The idea, or question, came from a conversation I have with God every year. I ask Him for a word that will represent the year, or season. At times I feel as though I’ve understood the word and so I ask if it’s time for a new one, even if the year isn’t actually over yet.
It started Freshman year of college when the word “joy” showed up everywhere I looked. I embraced it. I began to look for the joy in my every day life and kept track of it. In February, every day I wrote down on a cut-out heart one thing that made me joyful during the day. Anything from watching a movie with a friend to eating cheese fries.
My daily joyful memories.
Junior year the word “hope” was placed on my heart. Let me tell you, that word could not have been more accurate. I hoped that I would get a marketing job, and I did. I hoped for new experiences and I became a director in my sorority, something I never thought I’d do. My heart just constantly felt hopeful, even when there wasn’t something clearly in-sight to hope for. I actually don’t fell like I’ve “graduated” from this word yet. Due to some life adventures that went array when my hope became misplaced, I feel like I had to take a step back for a minute. Now I’m relearning it.
Going into junior year making little reminders about the word for the season.
When I have talked to God recently about my adventure of hope and where it is, if it needs to be put on the back burner, the question of why not came up. Not in the sense of “why not put your hope on the back burner” but “why not hope”. Looking back I can see many life decisions where I had to unknowingly ask myself “why not”. It’s a legitimate question that sometimes includes a pro-con list.
Why not go to Belmont University? Tuition is too expensive and I didn’t get the amount of scholarships I wanted or needed. I can go to my local university in Florida and pay $1,000 a year or the community college there and get paid to go to school. It’s so far from home in Tennessee and I’m a home-body. However, Belmont has the publishing program I've wanted. I’ve dreamed of going to Belmont since I was in 7th grade. Why not hope for the acceptance, hope for the journey? Why not trust that God can provide? Why not plan visits to Florida and ask friends and family to visit? Why not have faith that your dreams are important to God and it will work out for the good because you love Him, He loves you, and He is faithful? Why not?
In merely 2 days I’ll walk across the stage at Belmont University with a major in Publishing and a minor in Marketing. The only thing owed to Belmont will be my personal student loans, which ended up being majorly less than expected. Throughout my years here I have met so many wonderful people, my family has visited multiple times a year, as have my friends, and mom and Dave now live only 20 minutes away. Most importantly, to me, I’ve been able to discover who I am as “Arah Noel Hans-Majors”, without any family or friend related labels. Belmont has truly been a life discovering adventure and it all began when I asked myself, “why not”.
Your dreams, ambitions, desires may look absolutely impossible, but why not? I encourage you to list your goals, set your desires in your heart, look at the terrifying aspect of how they’ll become reality, even make a list of why it’s impossible. Then take the list and to the side write how that one thing will become possible. If it’s finances, why not trust that God will provide? If it’s time, why not reevaluate your priorities? As cheesy as it sounds, truly anything is possible with a whole lot of effort, courage and faith. Why not?
- Arah
