Yes, I’m FINALLY blogging. Took long enough, right? I’m having a hard time keeping up with living my fast-paced life, so writing about it just seems daunting. Sharing anything from your heart and letting it be what it is can keep us from doing so much, but no more waiting around for me.
January 1st snuck up on me. Big time. Graduation has come and gone, and in 6 days I start my first post-college job: teaching Visual Art to Kindergarten through 4th grade in a public school. In Meridian, Mississippi. Wait, yes that is happening. Who knew I’d get to use my Illustration minor so soon? That opportunity came up and fell together in a matter of days, and definitely didn’t ask my permission first. I’m feeling the urge to hold tightly to these days, but God does not seem as concerned about my comfort and need for control. Now I’m almost regretting those times I said I wanted to be pushed and challenged. Why did I go and do that? This first step out of my college bubble has been nothing but uncharted territory and learning on the go. I’m so excited, but so terrified. So thankful, but feeling so inadequate. I’m assuming that almost everyone that has stepped out of their front door has experienced that mixed emotion in their own way.
2015 also means that in 4 months and 20 days, I will fly to Gainesville, Georgia for 10 days of World Race training camp and also meet the newest members of my family. MY SQUAD. In 6 months, we leave to go to the first of our 11 countries: India. I’ll start the process of hugging each of my family and friends for the last time until May of 2016. It’s a thought that has consistently been on my mind since I decided to go. It’s such a strange thing to decide to go away, but then know that I can’t take everyone with me. Praise Jesus for Skype.
So many have asked why I am doing the World Race. I’ve avoided answering the question with much detail because I honestly hadn’t figured it out myself. We all know how much we hate admitting that we don’t have a game plan, so I kept it brief. I’ve known since September that I was supposed to go simply because The Lord had asked me to open my hands to the opportunity He gives. That doesn’t mean that I’ll just blindly grab at whatever comes my way, but I knew that this was specifically His direction. I didn’t know how else to expand on that reason for a while, but He is beginning to shed light on a pretty foggy area.
There isn’t one specific reason why I want to go. It’s every reason. The command to be bold, to serve, and continue learning. The new people with different perspective and beliefs. The fierceness of Jesus’ wild love in raw and vulnerable community. Even though it’s insanely obvious and painful to know that I need to grow, I know that I want it. Regardless of whether or not I think I’m capable to go into 11 countries and share stories of Jesus, it’s not my call to give God limits. He hasn’t given us one Plan A to walk like a tightrope either. The interruptions and questions are what have been keeping my heart beating and hands open, so I will continue on living in them.
Rainer Maria Rilke, a German poet, gives perfect words to the very chaotic, but weirdly clarifying process I’ve been walking through recently.
“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
