I found these words typed up on my computer from a few months ago, before discovering and applying to the World Race. It's amazing, looking back, the truth that they are now revealing to me…
What I need is…. perspective. I need to go away for a while and come back refreshed in my outlook on life. I need more balance, less one-sided ness. I want to see a different view and feel a different feeling. I want to see hope and possibility and… the future. I need a break from this thing called “everyday life”. I want to see the other side of the fence, and be reminded that my pain and my struggles in life are insignificant compared to others. I want to minimize my own self-perceived “problems”, simply by changing my perspective. I want to look to others, not myself. We all secretly crave acceptance and to be liked. We want to be thought of positively, not as someone to steer clear of. I don't think we can ever really go back to the start. We can't do things over or fix the mistakes we made in the past. All we can do is look forward and forge ahead. And forgive ourselves. And love ourselves. Why? Because God loves us, therefore we are deserving of love. It is that complicated and that simple.
After I applied to the World Race, my intial excitement and confidence in my decision suddenly disappeared. I was flooded with doubts and fears, and began to come up with excuses and reasons NOT to go. I typed these feelings out as well…
Is it my fear that's holding me back? Is that what this sudden reluctance, this sudden hesitation, is all about? Am I too comfortable to be uncomfortable? Too accustomed to my comfortable and easy life, to buying what I want, when I want? Am I afraid of confronting my spiritual life – is that what's holding me back? Afraid of what I will find, afraid of failing again. It's happened before, who's to say it wouldn't happen again? I don't want to feel like a failure, I don't want to feel regrets over decisions that I did or didn't make. This is huge. The World Race is a 1 year, $15,000 commitment. It overwhelms me in it's magnitude, and the more I question and doubt, the more I feel fear seep in. My selfishness has always been a strong force in my life, and governed many of my decisions. But what will happen with this? I am torn, always torn. Torn between living the life I want, the comfortable, familiar life where I surround myself with things I love. And then there's the life where I give all that up, and become who God meant me to be. To live for myself is easy, incredibly easy. To live for others is something that scares me. But aren't the things that scare us the most the ones most worth doing? I want my passions to overflow and become effective. It is not enough to just state them, to claim what they are. No, I need to put them into action, to live them out as a testament to the gifts the Lord has given me. My longings have never changed, have never disappeared – at the very core of my heart is the fullest intention to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind. But would this Race be for me, or for Him? I ride on a sea of doubts and fear and concerns and endless questions. And then I think of this Louisa May Alcott quote: “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship”. My life will still be waiting for me when I return. My things, my clothes, my movies and books and music, my family – all will still be waiting. I am not throwing it all out and saying goodbye forever, I am just saying goodbye for a year. I want to live a simple life to gain more perspective. I want to be thrown outside of my comfort zone and experience what it really means to call upon the name of the Lord. I want to experience suffering, to understand suffering. I want to grow in confidence, and throw all control over my life out the window. I want to look oppression and fear and poverty and neglect and despair in the face and say: I will not be scared, because the Lord is doing great things, and will continue to do great things.
And finally, I realized what all this was all about. The reasons behind my fear.
Suddenly I realized. These sudden doubts, these consuming fears that I was starting to feel – they weren't meant to hold me back. No, they were meant to push me forward. They were there to show me just what I'm dealing with here; what I will have to look square in the face and wrestle with. All that money gone, just like that? Faith in God. Living out of a backpack for a year? Dependency on God. Missing my family? Turning to my Heavenly Father for love and companionship. It was all leading back to HIM. But what of my own insecurities? My deep rooted fear of failure… Failure has been a big part of my life. I have done things in the past that I thought would reveal truth and a servants heart to me, and I only ended back at square one again. I was too comfortable, too selfish, too insecure and too afraid to let change overtake me. I am realizing that, while I like to think I embrace change and new things, in truth I am actually terrified of change. I am extraordinarily comfortable with comfort. I love being comfortable, I love being surrounded by the familiar and by things I love. My sense of adventure often comes through dreaming and imagining and reading, but rarely by doing. I am filled with intentions. They are there in full intensity and then they are gone again, leading me on to the next intention or idea, but never living up to their calling. Today, I realized something. It's not about me. All this time I was considering whether or not to do the race, the issues coming up were about me. What if I can't do it? What if I'm not spiritually strong enough? What if I fail, what if I am too afraid to open up, to be vulnerable? I have always struggled with truly opening up. I built up walls years ago and have never truly let them down. I don't like to be vulnerable or weak. I love composure and self-restraint – how can I fully open up to embrace all that the Lord has for me? And this whole time, all these doubts and fears were about me doing it in my own strength, which at the moment is sadly weak. But I wouldn't be doing it in my own strength – how could I not realize this? I'll be doing it through His strength, through faith and trust and perseverance. Through an open mind and heart. I'll be letting Him untie all these knots inside that have been restricting me for so many years. And I can't wait to be unraveled. I was reading another world racer's blog, and came across these words that struck me with their truth:
"
I felt ridiculous, and completely vulnerable. But with that came freedom, confidence, and power."
