Hi all. I need your input on something that's gotten to be fairly close to my heart over the last few days, although I've been praying about it for a few weeks.

I'm going to copy some of this from my LJ, as it's already written up there. I'll also provide links to the full posts I've made on this if you're interested in more information.

Basically, I've been thinking a lot lately about my blessings.

God's blessed me so much, especially in the area of creativity. A lot of people have told me that something I did or said was amazing. And I'm conscious of the fact that I'm different from other people. (The devil's trying to make me think I'm better than others, but I'm trying to resist that.)

I've been finding myself wondering why God chose to give me all these gifts that I have. He obviously wants me to do something with them. I've been praying a bit about this, and I think He's trying to nudge me to an organisation in the UK called Viz-A-Viz ( http://www.vizaviz.org.uk/ ), which is a Christian outreach organisation, basically. They offer "year out" plans with them called Optimum ( http://www.vizaviz.org.uk/optimum.html ), which is what I think God wants me to do. I personally know two people who've been on that themselves.

I feel very strongly that God wants me to enter into Optimum for the year. I'm certain of it, actually. More than that; I feel that He's directing me to a specific "Track", as they're known in Optimum, and that's Theatre.

There are several problems with this. I have been out of work for over a year. My bank account - my readily-accessible money - is dwindling, and the rest is all in difficult-to-access places which is meant for things like buying a house, having a pension, and basically securities like that. All of which has been carefully saved up, with help from my parents (read: My parents did most of this work, really.)

The year costs £3000-odd, but it's not needed to pay it all in one go, and it's pretty much normal that the church will help fund it, from what I've seen of the two other people I know of who have done it.

My parents aren't Christian. They are, however, well-versed in the ways of money. That's a good thing from the point of view of having a secure future, which pretty much everybody wants, right? Note that I'm not pooh-poohing the idea of saving up money; that would be silly.

All of the above scares me. A lot.

I'm not going to post my entire entries from LJ, as they're open for public viewing. I do ask that you take a read of them both, though, as they explain more about the situation and how I feel about it. (The links are at the bottom of this post.)

Basically, I'm posting here to ask for advice, comments, and prayer. It's an incredibly big thing for me, and I've basically already made up my mind about it. The next step, though, is to talk with my parents, which I'm not altogether looking forward to.

Here are the links. I've put the first of these in the link section of this post too, so you can just click that one.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ciaran_h/52276.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ciaran_h/52742.html

Thanks for reading.

- Ciaran.