Can I just say how weird and crazy this is for me? I’m still in denial that I’ve even signed up for this. This is an insane thing that I’d never ever ever ever thought I would do. I’M DOING WHAT?!?! You don’t know how many times I’ve thought of some creative way to begin my WR blog, to share why I made this decision, some big tale of a spiritual encounter or lifelong calling or any crazy cool thing.
But I guess I have to go with whatever comes to mind right now, which is this:
I’m the burglar.
Let me explain.
(Well, for one, I love using movies as analogies. [But I’m not even a huge Hobbit fan!])
You know how Bilbo Baggins is tending his garden, living comfortably in his historic hobbit house? Everything has their order and place. Life is fine, dandy, and full of routine. But then Gandalf shows up and he says “Ah, yes, I want you for my adventure thing to save the world.” [Yes, I know. Accuracy being “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure.”] And Bilbo says no, then chases them down to accept it.
Yeah, well that’s me.
I was Bilbo. Tending my little life garden, loving being comfortable and unworried, everything fine and dandy, orderly in their places, routine, no big changes, LAZY, no freak-show crazy decisions, no scary adventures to change the world. God walks up, taps me on the shoulder and says “I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure.” And I said no. (At first, obviously.) *insert “hold on, wait for me!”*
But guess what? I asked for it.
Hold up, you said you were comfortable and didn’t want change?
Yeah, that’s right, I did. That was the truth of the matter. But I didn’t realize it. Here’s the back story:
I graduated high school in May 2014. Couldn’t wait to be done with school and on to greater things. Everyone was telling me to apply to community college as a backbone, but doing so didn’t feel right to me at the time. People thought I was nuts for it. I didn’t feel like God wanted me to go that direction yet, or at all. So I decided that when August hit and school started for my siblings, I’d find a job to save money and get a car, phone, and a life. August turned to October, October turned to December, and I still had no job. I felt I’d wasted a semester waiting for a job to fall into my lap, and I lacked the self confidence necessary. (The truth is, I didn’t want to work and I was a lazy butt and a home body introvert.) Not to mention my social life had diminished after drama in past relationships and I couldn’t make friends well enough(being the awkward introvert that I am). I was struggling inwardly in so many ways as well. My parents took me aside a number of times to help me get out of “drowning,” how I needed to change, that they loved me and want the best for me, and to grow my relationship with God while I have the time to do so. I knew these answers, but I think what I wanted was to wallow in them. You’ve had those moments before, right, where you dwell on the sadness hoping you will feel better? Well, it doesn’t work, you just feel worse, I know first hand.
Anyway, I knew I needed to change, and I wanted to change, I just didn’t want to do the work to change. So in that tornado I continued to spin.
January rolls around and I’m trying to put my feet back on the ground, get back into society, look for a job, and ultimately said “God, for goodness sake, tell me what you want me to do now?! I’ll do anything, I’m done trying. I know I need to change, but I’m not sure how.” (Uh oh, I just gave permission and He’s gonna give me exactly what I ask for.) Then He opens a door, asks me to take a look, and consider walking through.
So here’s where The World Race steps in: I heard about the World Race after my friend Leah announced she was going on a mission trip for nine months. I started to follow her blog so I could see her adventures and experiences on the trip. Months went by and as Leah posted more, I got more interested in this adventure as something I should do myself. I took the quiz to see if I had what it took to go. Then in January, I hear one of my other friends announce that she’s going. I thought “Okay, what really is The World Race?” I researched, and a month later, after feeling so much pull towards the trip, I took the quiz again. I watched the promo videos, and felt a whisper inside me saying that this was what I was supposed to do. I began to read Leah’s team’s blogs. Researching the WR thrilled me and terrified me. I felt so bipolar to it all: I wanted to go experience this great adventure and be changed dramatically, but I was so very scared of experiencing the unknown/unplanned and changing dramatically. Fear erupted in me and I said to myself, “No. There’s no way. I am super scared. That is crazy and scary.” But at the same time I had this feeling, “You have to do this. This is the opportunity you have been waiting for. You need to do this in order to change.” I was really interested, but the whole bizarre idea was totally shoved away. I didn’t think I could do it. So I fasted and asked God to reveal to me if this is what I should do. And, I guess I felt a green light that never went away. Each step I wrestled with having faith and overwhelming fear. If I was accepted, then it was meant to be. I was accepted first week of May, three months of wrestling faith and trust later.
<<< Quick Throwback: A few years ago, my church had a conference for missions. During the speaking, I felt called to a short term mission trip. In my inner reasoning, I thought short term as in a week. But in my heart, I remember thinking the number nine months long. And guess what? Yeah, this trip is nine months. Just a quick God-thingy-mabob. >>>
Now here’s the honest truth: I don’t feel right for this trip. I feel spiritually unprepared or unqualified. My relationship with God I don’t know how to explain, it needs work lemme tell ya, I am struggling. You need to have faith, trust in God, and confidence for this sort of thing, which I don’t have. I don’t have a passion for missions or a calling, I’m uncomfortable and inexperienced sharing the gospel in English let alone a different language. I’m just not perfect for it, in my opinion, at all. I can’t give them love that even I don’t feel all the time, that I’m not confident in or fully trust. Yes, I know the quote, “God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.” And how many times did He use the inexperienced, the unworthy and the imperfect in the Bible? I guess you could say “Perfectly Imperfect?” It’s been a fight as I’ve wrestled with going. My mom has even compared me to Jonah.
So, I said yes. And I’m an awful mess in all sorts of awful painful ways, I don’t know where to start. But you know what? I think I am made for this. This is my next growing opportunity. All the points line up, all the things in my life seem to have been leading me up to and preparing me for this. I’m scared out of my mind and crazy uncomfortable. But if God really is in this, I want to be a part of it and see what He’ll do in me and through me, even if I’m scared. But He simply calls me to be obedient even if I don’t understand, to feel the fear and go with it anyway. I’m just trying to do that.
“Obedience isn’t a lack of fear. It’s just doing it scared.”
– Jen Hatmaker
So here we go. Or as Bilbo said, “I’m going on an adventure!”
