That moment you realize the last blog you posted was in month 5 and it’s now month 8…not the best moment! For those following along with my blog, my sincerest apologies for not keeping you up to date with what God has been doing these past couple of months. But as you quickly learn on the World Race there’s no turning back! So my goal now is to get you caught up with a series of blogs over the next couple of weeks before my team heads to Vietnam for month 9! The words below are some from an unfinished blog I wrote in Malaysia/Indonesia during our Unsung Heroes month.
June 29
Before I left on the Race, I would spend countless hours at night [sometimes until 2 or 3 in the morning] reading blog after blog posted by World Racers already in the field, all in an attempt to get some taste of what my world would soon look like come January. And I remember one night came when I told myself that I had to stop reading them, because unfortunately it was doing more harm to my over analytical mind than it was good. As a racer preparing to launch, the last thing I wanted to read was a blog solely describing how hard the race is, or “warning” future racers to “be ready” Yeah…because I knew what that meant… “Be ready….”. Okay. Thanks. I’ll take note.
OKAY now before I get into the point of my blog…hear me when I say that I knew on some level that the Race would be hard…I didn’t know really what that meant or what that looked like, but I did know it would be some sort of hard.
The thing is that before you leave for the race, it’s nearly impossible to envision what that could entail. And therefore, if you’re anything like me, your mind comes up with the most extreme ideas for what that might mean. Now don’t get me wrong there were PLENTY of blogs that got me fired up and ready to take on what the Lord had in store for me, but there were also some that I read and closed my computer feeling a little discouraged and nervous about what I was getting myself into. And not to say that these people’s feelings weren’t warranted, because I’m sure they were. They were vulnerable and from the heart, but they were too often left without a seal of enthusiasm for what would come of those hard times. And thus, it was in that moment at home in my bed that I decided I would never write a blog to “warn future Racers”.
And then…I hit that point…the point where it got “hard”. And I thought…Oh no. Now I get it. I was in Malaysia, with 5 months of the race still beaming in my future, I felt lost, I felt discouraged, I felt frustrated, I felt far from home, and I felt far from God. So I did what any person with these types of emotions might do…I cried. I cried a lot.
And the beautiful thing is, God always meets you where you’re at, He never leaves you hanging there. But you have to choose to press in [a challenge that my loving teammate Kate never fails to remind me of]. This is where I wish the blogs had kept going. To explain the blessings that came from the hard times. To explain that it’s a kind of hard where you can rejoice in the midst of it because it means that growth, understanding, strength, depth, love and perseverance are all going to show up on the other side! In John 13:7 Jesus says, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this”. It doesn’t take going on the World Race to realize that life isn’t always easy. There are hard times on the Race and there are hard times at home. But the resolution is still the same; press in. God is still there, and He still has blessings to shower upon you when you put your faith in Him.
