Day 323
Unlike most days on the race, today will be different. I will brave the early morning of my last travel day. I will board my last flight. I will say some extremely hard tear filled goodbyes to some of the greatest people I have ever known. I will say an exciting and long awaited hello to the faces I have missed. I will hold my puppy with no fear of rabies. I’ll open my closet to see all of my shoes-praise the Lord. I’ll stand in my hot shower without giving a thought to if the well has enough to last. I will sleep in a bed…not just any bed, my bed.
Am I excited? Yes. Am I sad? Yes. It’s bittersweet. However, I keep reminding myself…it is the end of a chapter, not the end of the book.
I look back to Chandler last June and see a broken girl defined by the expectations others placed on her. Her heart was locked in shame and fear. I look in the mirror now and can’t help but smile. I’m not fixed-I’m free. I’m not searching-I’ve found. I’m not hurting-I’m healed. I didn’t think I would change, but I have. How could you not?
How do you put something like the World Race into words? How do you explain essentially one year of life?
How do you describe the pain you felt as you walked into bars and along beaches with women being prostituted all around you? How do you capture the joy that overflowed as high school students came to know Jesus or children felted loved and seen for the first time? How do you portray the unique beauty of every person your eyes locked with across the world?
I am not sure. I don’t think I ever will be able to accurately bring anyone back to the specific moments that knocked down the barriers surrounding my heart. But I will try. I will try because just like every event in my life…this has become my story.
I have said some hard goodbyes. Goodbye to every family I have found. Goodbye to squadmates who are more like brothers and sisters than anything. Goodbye to the Chandler who boarded the first flight to Africa.
But that’s the thing about the World Race… every hard goodbye has an exciting hello.
So today, I finally get to say my hellos. Hello to my home country. Hello to my parents, my brother, my friends and family that have been patiently awaiting my arrival. Hello to the Chandler who is finally back on American soil…the Chandler who longs to know God.
God is real, alive and moving. He meets us where we are in personal ways. He isn’t the preconceived notion I had of Him who keeps a record of my wrongs. He is gentle, He pursues and His chase is intimate. Take it from me. I want to know God, but I want others to know Him as I do. This is the story I have lived, so this is the story I will tell.
Honestly- I don’t want to be seen for what I have or have not done in the past year. I want to be known by my love. I want others to see Jesus in me before they see me and the result of a heart that has expanded 22 times over. 11 countries. 11 teammates.
I’m accepting that my heart really can live in many places all over the world. It’s with my family, it’s with my friends, it’s with my squad and it is in 11 new countries. I imagined my heart would have to be divided, but just like God, its been multiplied.
So let’s just remove the title. Let’s not call it a trip…we don’t even have to refer to it as the World Race. It was an unforgettable year now in the rear view mirror. It was full of God’s ability to prove Himself faithful time and time again. Gratefully and humbly, I walk away from this season a restored and renewed daughter. I will live to tell of all I have seen and be expectant for the immeasurably more as He begins a new thing within me.
Let’s get coffee or whatever. I just want to meet with you where you are and sit a while.
“And we all, who with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
Fam. Friends. Supporters.
Thank you for believing in what God is doing in this generation. My heart is full knowing the support from you all is what got me here and the gospel spread. Let’s be a people known by our love and continue to spur on one another to greatness.
