The top two questions I got right after I got back to the States at the end of last year were:
1) How was your trip?
2) What’s next?
As difficult as it is to sum up a whole year of life into a 30-second sound bite, it is even more difficult to answer the latter.
What’s next?
It’s a question that plagued all us racers at various times last year while we fought to stay present wherever our feet fell.
What’s next?
It’s a question I ask myself almost daily.
What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?
To be honest, there are moments when I would like nothing more than to have a concrete answer to that question. But outside of those moments, I find myself living this crazy life of the unknown. I have decided I can’t answer “What’s next?” Instead, I’m focusing on asking, “What’s today?”
Because I get asked a lot, here’s what I’m up to at the moment: Last year, my grandma passed away. She lived in Wyoming. 4 weeks ago, my dad and I flew out here to start cleaning out her old house. After a week, my dad went back to Tennessee, and I stayed here. Alone.
Now I really like my introverted time, but I knew I was going to have find a balance. So I made a personal commitment to leave the house once a day. Cabin fever would not get the best of me.
Being on my own, I quickly realized how much I depended on my team last year to motivate me to get out and do things. Last year, there was way more structure than I thought at the time: the location was a given, the ministry was picked out, the work was organized, and friends came from an assigned team. But here…I had to be proactive. I had to do the logistics. I had to communicate with the contacts. I had to fight to fill my time with the things I wanted, knowing that it was more comfortable for me to stay inside all day, watching TV, and disappearing from society.
So I took control and started stepping out of my comfort zone without my teammates, without my squadmates, without my friends, without my parents. For one of the only times in my life, it really was just me and God.
Living this way is different than I’ve ever lived before. It’s like when you’re younger and you’re given a coloring book. You get to pick the colors, but the lines are already there. You have teachers, professors, managers who help you along the way. They show you how to stay in the lines, how to get the good grades, how to succeed, and color the prettiest picture out there. The people around you are coloring a similar, if not the same, picture. It’s a tangible, visible, describable picture.
At the end of 2013, I threw out my coloring book and got a sketch pad. I started taking art lessons from the One who created art. Last year, He taught me a lot of the basics. He introduced me to new techniques and color pallets. He pushed me out of the logic and into the abstract.
Currently, my sketch pad is Wyoming. 95% of the pages are blank. Most mornings I wake up and ask my Art Teacher, “What should we create today?” The results…fantastic.
One morning, He spoke softly to me, Go to Lander. (It’s a neighboring town.) I want to take you out for Thai food. (My favorite food!) So I went. Long story short, I met a man from Thailand, who served me some of the best Thai food I’ve had since Thailand. I left there and went to a local cafe where I met two more people. Days later, my two new friends and I went rock climbing in Sinks Canyon. It was the perfect day to meet them.
Another morning, He said to me, Go visit your neighbor and ask her to lunch. What started as a simple lunch invite turned into a two hour conversation where she shared about her life and family, and I shared about revelations I had about God. We both got so caught up in the conversation, we lost track of time. She said she’s been struggling with her faith recently and could never express how much it meant to her that I shared these things.
These are just 2 of the many stories I have from the past 3 weeks. I don’t take credit for any of them. I realize how unique my life is right now. I don’t have a schedule. I have 95% free time. But I don’t think it’s the “free time” that is the driving force behind what I do with my life. It’s my Art Teacher. It’s God. It’s waking up every day saying, “Where do you want to use me today? Who do you want to speak to through me?”
If all we have is today, the now, then all of a sudden life takes on a whole new meaning. Suddenly, deciding which line to check out in the grocery store becomes a prayer, and you see the person that steps in line behind you as more than just a mere coincidence.
Meanwhile, God is simply saying, Let me paint the most beautiful picture you’ve ever seen.
