Side Note: Right now, I’m posting this from an airplane somewhere over Russia!!! (TECHNOLOGY IS SO COOL!)
Yesterday, my squad and I started our last travel days together. I woke up extra early to make sure I would get a hot shower and was surprised by freezing water that showed no signs of changing it’s mind. Eh, nothing new. Then a group of us walked 15 minutes to go out for a last breakfast together to a coffee shop we loved. Wouldn’t ya know it… The power was out. We grabbed some croissants and headed out to improvise. Lindsey and I ended up having our last Race coffee date over two pour-overs. In all of the hustle and bustle of packing and buying last minute gifts, I forgot to eat lunch. So, when we made it to the Cape Town airport, I grabbed a free cup of hot water and a large wooden stirrer as a makeshift spoon (think wooden tongue suppressor you’d see at the doctor’s office), pulled a stashed packet of oatmeal from my daypack, and had my delicious, improvised lunch. Seriously, what a perfect way to spend my last hours in Africa. I loved the “Race-iness” of it.
When you’re on the Race, you learn to go with the flow, to work with what’s in front of you, and to see the blessings in cold showers, power outages, and daypack-oatmeal for lunch. You learn to let go of your inhibitions. You learn to be spontaneous. You begin to learn to be joyful and glad in all moments. And, while these are wonderful things to learn and a blessing from The Lord, none of these are the biggest things I learned.
Before the Race, I held some pretty arrogant beliefs. I thought I would come home no longer struggling with doubts, that I would have all the right answers, and that my life would be filled with clarity.
I can say with full assurance that, although I am bolder than I used to be and have more confidence in God’s word than before, I still struggle with doubt. I don’t have the answers. In fact, I have more questions than ever before! And I might as well throw clarity out of the window.
But, what I do know, with all that I am, is this:
1) The Lord sees all of who you are and absolutely adores you. You are his beloved. You are his bride. You are the apple of his eye.
2) Run to the Lord over and over and over and over and over… No matter what, you can run to him. Whether your heart has been broken, you have stumbled over the same thing again and are filled with regret, you are tired and frustrated, or you don’t know which way to go… Run to him. He is ALWAYS waiting with his arms wide open and will never turn you away. We can risk total transparency with him. He’s so good.
3) Cling to his promises. The past 11 months for me have been filled with a lot of silence. I haven’t been hearing God’s voice in the ways I’ve been used to and it’s been really hard. That’s what his promises are for. He has given us promises to dig our nails into and hold onto for dear life… because that’s what the Christian walk feels like sometimes. But that produces perseverance and endurance in us, the saints. Keep clinging. Drench your heart and mind and soul in scripture every day. Write his promises on your heart. Even when the promises don’t feel true, keep clinging. You can put all of your eggs in God’s basket. You can bank everything on his word.
I may not have ended up where I planned, but I’ve definitely ended up exactly where I’m supposed to be: full of questions, insecurities, and doubts, but in the loving arms of my Father, the only constant one, the great comforter, and the brave and kind lover of my soul.
