Transitioning and Beyond!

I have been “home” for nearly two months. I have experienced Christmas with my family and the start of a new year. I have seen Squads come behind me and met with Racers that had gone before me. I am not on the race anymore, yet my Race family has remained. In fact, it keeps growing! Once you are a Racer, you start to share with any of them, because it’s someone who “get’s it.”

 

Coming back to Canada after being gone for 11 months was everything but easy. I came back to a place that everything look and felt the same, yet things were different. My bedroom was how I left it. My parents were there to greet me – as was the whole town! I walked the streets, thinking about how easy it was to feel as though I had never left. I could pick up conversations with friends as if I had just talked to them the day before.  Friends of mine had gotten married. Some even had babies – including my sister! Change. Even the things that are unseen.

 

I came home being excited about my year. About what God did in me and through me. Upon returning home, I wrote a blog, The Inevitable, about what it was like and how weird it was. As time has progressed and more stories have emerged, I am still bottled down with emotion. To not be around people who “get” what I just experienced is tough. I have a community around me…yet this community is not build on a foundation of hope, peace, truth and the LORD!

 

I’ve been realizing and seeing things that I never experienced before. Little things such as how easy it is to spend a lot of money going out for coffee with friends. How expensive ONE meal is…more than what I would be given for a few days in other countries. How rigid. mundane, and scheduled our society is. After the year away…I’m used to flying by the seat of my pants and gong where God leads, yet I noticed that those around me don’t usually have time for flexibility. It reminded me of who I was…getting frustrated with the little, simple things, and missing out on the little moments and joys that come with taking an extra minute to love on someone in need!

 

We are a busy society. We are a society that is apathetic and in need of truth. I feel alone. I feel like the words that come out of my mouth is a foreign language. I have God. I have my Squad that are miles away from me. I’ve been filling my time with Facebook and e-mail and Skype because it’s where I can communicate with those who understand me – yet then it would mean that I would be closed off from those around me because they don’t “get it.” I mean…what’s the big deal. I just “traveled” around the world for a year, right? It was so much more to me than that. It was a way of life. It became my life. It was more than being a “tourist.” It was about being, and doing something for the needs of this world. The needs that go unnoticed and unmentioned by most people.

 

 

I would love for people to understand, but unless they have walked the streets I walked, I can’t expect them to. Dropping the expectations of those around me is hard, but something we learned this year – especially when others expectations of me keep bombarding me. I failed, when I came home. I turned to things rather than God. I am not proud of being “lazy” and making excuses for why I wouldn’t seek people out. I wanted them to seek me out…but I learned this year that doing something that’s different and unlike you can go a long way and make a lasting impact! 

 

I am still transitioning. I know I will be for a while. I am processing and continuing to learn and grow and develop. I praise God for the prayers and love that surround me. As I begin my time in Georgia for Project Searchlight, I ask you to pray for wisdom and guidance and for me to dream big! Everything is possible with God!