The past couple of days the Lord has been talking to me quite a bit about the importance of remaining present. The race sometimes feels like such a whirlwind that it is easy to get distracted and to forget to just live and enjoy each day. Yesterday I was reminded of a memory from el salvador (month 2) and it was almost startling to me to realize that I am now already finishing up month 6.When God told me to remain present i wasn't really sure how to process all of my thoughts so I asked for a visual and what he gave me was amazing. The visual I had was of my mom when she was pregnant with my younger brother, Russell (who is 2 years younger than me). My moms pregnancy represented the life that I have to look forward to after the race (the pregnancy being metaphorical not literal, obviously). A pregnancy is filled with anticipation and preparation and you know that you have a specific time frame in which to prepare yourself. In many respects, that is exactly how I feel right now. I am filled with excitement for what my life holds and I also know that I have a certain number of months before I will start my post race life.
However, I forgot to mention the other half of the vision which was of a little blonde haired, blue eyed girl (who happened to be me). That little girl was so exited to be a big sister. The image of the girl represented my team and the rest of my squad and our ministry on the race. The people here are my present and just because my mom was pregnant with my little brother doesn't mean that she ever neglected me. In fact, she always made me feel that I had such an important role to play as the older sister.
Through this the Lord reminded me that I have so much wisdom and so many ideas that I still need to share while I am on this journey. I realized that there's nothing wrong with looking forward to my future, but I can't make it such a big part of my life to where it hinders what God has called me to do here in the present (Hebrews 12:1) I only have 5 more months left with this amazing group of people and I don't want to miss a single opportunity to learn or teach something that God has placed on my heart.
"time is a relentless river. It's rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time. When I fully enter times swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention. I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment." -Ann Voscamp
