I have switched routes.
Not to long ago, AIM announced that they were adding a 5th January route to relieve some of the overflow of racers traveling on the other four routes leaving out in January. At first I barely even paid attention to the email sitting in my inbox, but something tugged at me to open it. So I opened it and skimmed through the email. I had no intention of changing my route. I was pretty content where I was. However, I saw one word and my heart excelled higher than it has in the past year. Zambia. My first thought was, “HOME. I could go home.” My second thought was this is to go to be true. There is no way the Lord wanted me to switch routes.
I know that throughout my blogs I mention Zambia A LOT. That is because Zambia has become just as much a part of me as my name has. Despite the struggles that happened in Zambia, it is the place where I learned to call the heart of God home. Through my experience there the Lord unloosed something within me that even I do not fully understand yet. And despite the extreme brokenness of the season before I left, the Lord restored me into the weighted soul that now wants to see others restored.
So imagine the excitement I had when I read the list of countries for this brand new route- Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Albania, Bulgaria, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia.
But the World Race is not just about traveling the world and seeing cool countries. It IS about experiencing the heart of God in ways that only exist outside the realm comfort. This change needed to come from Him and not my want to revisit a place where self-discovery was so closely linked. So being the cautionary person that I am, I asked the Lord for a confirmation. And it came, through SEVERAL different venues. But I think the icing on the cake was this. A while back, a very sweet older lady made me a pillowcase with the scripture that got me through one of the toughest seasons of my life- Romans 8:28. While packing up some of my things Friday, I rediscovered that pillowcase. And while the color of the
stitching meant nothing to me before then, that day it made me stop dead in my tracks. It is the color purple, the team color of the squad that I am now apart of.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to His purpose.”
It is the subtle little encounters of the Holy Spirit that are guiding me further down this path. God is not just limited to the big confirmations. He is also found in the mundane everyday occurrences.
