The impending question: what was your favorite part?
Maybe people want me to say my favorite part was getting out there and seeing the world, experiencing different cultures and living with new people. Or maybe my highlights should be going to Angkor Wat or hiking Table Mountain. If I really wanted to I could fluff up my own life and make this journey about me. But I’m not going to do that, this journey, this life is not about me.
So, I’ll tell you my favorite part. My favorite part of my race is what God did in my heart, He burst out of the small box I had put Him in and showed me how big He is and showed me His loving, compassionate, bold, just, and merciful character. God changed me from a girl who thought she was all that and then some to a follower who fears and respects her Father. I’m different, I know how to love now because I’ve allowed myself to be loved. I know how to be vulnerable because I had no other option than to step out and trust Him. I know how to be bold because I’ve learned to listen to the little voice that says “go, run after her, and pray for her”. I’ve learned how to seek God because I’ve realized how nothing I am without Him. I’ve learned to fear God because He is so big and powerful my mind just can’t grasp it. I’ve learned to find God in my everyday because if I didn’t they would be so bland and boring. I’ve realized that God has created my sense of humor and He thinks I’m funny so why bother with the options of this world? I’ve learned to find my identity in God and not in the eyes of others, life is much more satisfying that way. And the list could go on and on.
I’ve been blessed. Blessed with friends who didn’t give up or get tired of me. Blessed with the most beautiful places to call home (Chanthburi, Thailand, Pursat, Cambodia, Jeffreys Bay, South Africa and Isla Ometepe, Nicaragua) I’ve been blessed with views that blew me away and pointed me to the Creator of them. I’ve been blessed with 72 hour travel days where God is the only One who brings me peace. I’ve been blessed with belly laughs that make your stomach hurt and smiles so big your cheeks cramp up.
These are my favorite parts, crazy dancing on a mini stage in Pattaya, staying up all night and making new friends, struggling hard core day to day in Thailand with my best friends, living out many of my life long dreams, walking to the outdoor fruit market, daily tuk tuk rides, finding random celebrities in far away lands (aka Angelia Jolie in Siem Reap, Cambodia) eating street food, singing and dancing to the taxi music on the way to ministry, doing my laundry by hand in the lake, laughing so hard I could die, singing on the top of my lungs in worship that’s in Spanish, waking up everyday to a room full of my favorite people, long days spent at coffee shops (I had to learn how to enjoy this) swimming in the ocean with the biggest waves I’ve ever seen, looking at my squad of friends and feeling unbelievably proud of how far we have come and all we have helped each other through, filling up the whole airplane with me and my 48 closest friends, feeling everything at once with someone who understands.
I look at those things and I know without a doubt in my mind, it was God. God used the past nine months to grow me. He perfectly orchestrated every single second and He is proud. This trip isn’t about me, it’s about Him and how insanely big and powerful and loving and smart and funny and out of this world He is. If you think I could have done any of this without the Lord leading me step by step your wrong. Raising $12,491 in nine months, impossible without God. The boldness to leave the country for nine straight months, impossible without God. Living in pure and real joy, it’s simply impossible without God.
So what did I really do for the past nine months? I said yes. And He is my favorite part.
