These words graced my email as I got onto WiFi this past Monday morning. And I lost it as soon as I got to a place where an ugly cry was an appropriate. I didn’t know that tears would fall over such a simple sentence that was sent to me.
Those words will stick with me through the hard days of my race. And those words will likely stick with me through the rest of my life. The days I am thankful that God called me on a journey that makes me look more like Him each day, instead of the person I can become when there is more Kristy than there is Jesus.
I won’t tell you that the race is easy, or is even always fun. The race has its hard days. I am beginning to believe the words of my squad leader: “this will likely be the hardest thing you have every done.” The race has days where the idea of showing up to ministry for the 6th day in a row, or listening to your third church service of the day is tiring. There are days where home seems incredibly enticing but seemingly so far away. There are moments that racers question their own call, question if they are good enough, and wonder if going home is the right choice. There are moments that counting the cost means a lot more than money and sometimes that cost seems to be a lot to give. And there are days that picking up your cross is loving on that smelly kid for the 25th day in a row. Sometimes, like at home, I find it easy to give up on the very thing that God called me to do.
I find myself dirtying the page of my Bible that holds this highlighted verse: “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil 1:6. That verse is an encouragement to my soul on the days I consider giving up.
It is quotes like the one at the top of this page that keep me going on the rough days. It is the encouragement that comes at exactly the right time to keep us moving through the hard days. It is people that don’t know the power of their words who send them to change a hard day into a day where the adjective to describe it is encouraged.
It reminds me of all the times that I wondered if God would every actually use me to do something with the world. There were many days I was in bed crying that I wanted God to use me. Little did I know that living my life would be the way God would use me. I imagined some big, overwhelming moment that I would realize that God was using me. Instead, its normal life, a bit interrupted by the World Race. It is getting up every morning and deciding that I am going to give it my all today. It doesn’t matter if you are 5000 miles away from home or living in the house that you grew up in.
Little did I know that stepping out in faith would be the very thing that catapulted not just me into my calling, but the people around me into their own callings. The very thing that scares me most is the thing that pushes me forward to get through the hard days. A quote from one of my favorite movies reminds me “Sometimes, it only takes 20 seconds of insane courage.”
I hold on to this quote: “God doesn’t call the qualified, but qualifies the called.” If we are willing, God is willing to use us.
I have a chance to live an incredible life. I am spending the next 10 months of my life, moving around the world each month, to proclaim his gospel to the end of the world. We literally will have stepped foot into more countries in the next year than most people do in a lifetime. We will have crossed over multiple borders, gotten passport stamps on three continents, and learned more about the idea that what’s more important is what He is doing inside of me rather than what job we do or task we take on.
The World Race hasn’t changed my life. It has changed my location, but not my mission: to take the gospel to the very ends of the globe until I see Jesus. The World Race has changed significant parts of the insignificant parts of my day: my address (or really the lack thereof), my schedule, my showering routine, my closet size, and the time I go to bed and the time I wake up. But Jesus is changing my heart, increasing its capacity to love other people, and showing me more about His heart.
Jesus is doing incredible things in me and I am so thankful that he asked me to be on this journey with Him in 2015.
Until He Comes,
Kristy
P.S. Fundraising Update: Friends, I am blown away from your support. I am currently at $9750 which leaves me with just $1250 to get to before April 1st. I would love to partner with you to continue to be a part of God’s story around the world. Click on the link to the left that says SUPPORT ME if you would like to support me financially or partner with me again. I am so thankful for the most incredible support team in the world!
