Let’s just be honest: with less than one month until Launch, I don’t want to go on the World Race.
I thought raising $14,000 would be the hardest part.
With about 80 percent of it in my support account, I can honestly say I’ve relaxed about that.
It’s this leaving for a year thing that’s a bigger deal than I expected.
It’s the realization friends have that (because of distance) they won’t get to see me again before I leave.
It’s the look in a freelance client’s eye accompanying the words, “Please don’t leave for 11 months.”
It’s flying back home from Latin America for my sister’s wedding but missing a majority of the prep.
It’s putting parts of life on hold for a year until I get back.
It seems the World Race is like Christmas trees: really pretty until you get up close.
Once you get up close, it’s messy. Terrifying.
Everything is affected
From that pair of boots you’re lusting over but can’t justify buying to sit in the closet for a year to the fact that you’re running out of toothpaste but don’t want to go out and buy a new tube you won’t finish.
The good-bye hugs where you don’t want to let go because you know it’ll be 11… 12… 13… months until you get to embrace again.
Not only do I need for this Christmas but what’ll help me be prepared to launch into Christmas again next year.
Blowing past the 2014 calendars on the shelf and accidentally already writing 2015 on a check.
The real adult things of making sure bills are going to be paid and the self-employed things of making sure my taxes will be done… correctly.
I just don’t want to go.
It feels like I’m being dragged closer and closer to Launch.
Closer to ministry I feel poorly-prepared for. Closer to using my rusty Spanish to fall flat on my face. Closer to that sleeping pad I’m not sure is comfy enough, the pack I’m not sure is big enough, and the clothes I’m not sure are warm (or cool) enough.
But since I’m still raising money, I have to put on the brave face and at least seem excited.
After all, there seems to be this new trend in my life where I’m in front of a crowd with a mic and a no-warning introduction to share about my trip.
Deep down I know—like with all other mission trips I’ve not wanted to go on—if I back out now, I’ll regret it.
Deep down I remember: God has asked me to do this. And when you make a bargain with Him, you have to follow through.
He is in this.
And I get to see Him in the unexpected donations that come from seemingly-random places.
I see Him when I remember how many people are cheering for me, praying for me, and excited to read stories.
As I tiptoe closer and closer to January realizing that one year from now it will be over. Life will look completely different. Advent will have a new meaning and Christmas a rebirth.
I won’t know the best way to collect my furniture from its stashed homes across three states, and I may not even know where that furniture and I are going to live.
But I know God has asked me to do this.
So even though I don’t want to go… I will.
It’s about obedience.
