I didn’t cry. While I was preparing for WR, I didn’t shed a single tear until the night before my launch when I said goodbye to my best friends. I was at peace. People would ask me all the time if I was nervous, and I was able to so truthfully tell them that, no I wasn’t nervous at all, just excited for the journey ahead. I had been preparing for months and months and months, so to be nervous seemed silly. I knew that this is where God was calling me, so if I was following Him, there was no need to fear.
So, I didn’t cry.
Upon landing in Albania, my team and I looked around at the beautiful scenery. They kept saying, “I can’t believe we’re here!” and, “This is crazy!”. All the while in my head, I was saying the same things, but instead of saying it with enthusiasm, all I had was dread. I sat in my bunk bed that night and every tear that probably should have been shed at home was falling down my face as I realized that this would be the first night in a long row of nights that I would not be sleeping in my bed, or waking up to Mom, Dad and Novie, or calling Hannah, Will, Bobby, Sarah, or Matthew whenever I just felt like it.
The World Race was beginning with everyone sprinting ahead, and I was sorrily lagging behind.
I spent so much of this past year looking at the racers before me and seeing their immense joy, it seemed like, in every circumstance. I would daydream my senior year about the adventures I would go on and the people I would meet. Now I’m here and I daydream of home. I miss sitting on the couch with my mom after a long day at school and work and making her watch The Office or Grey’s Anatomy with me. I miss going to Newk’s with my dad on a moments notice whenever he would crave their tomato basil soup.
I feel like I’m in this endless cycle of “being here, but wanting to be there.”
I was sharing this with another team leader on my squad about a week ago over a can of exotic Fanta, and she was sharing some of the hard things her team had already experienced. Mckayla, the team leader, expressed to me how at first she was appalled that Satan would attack so soon, but then she thought about it again. Why would Satan wait until she was comfortable to attack? Why wouldn’t he strike immediately and not let there be any room for comfortability? Because that’s what he does.
This deeply resonated in me. I had been filled with such peace about this 9 months abroad until I was actually on it, and on the VERY FIRST NIGHT, satan tried to throw all of that peace away. I wasn’t even in the compound one hour before his lies were penetrating my mind and making me question everything I had worked so incredible hard for.
This brings me back to the very beginning of creation. Chapter 1, God created. Chapter 2, God established man and women. Chapter 3, the fall.
Only 3 chapters in to 1,189 chapters total in the Word and satan already sought the downfall of man. So if that was his character in the very beginning, there’s nothing that says he can’t do the same thing now. Eve’s story always seemed confusing to me. Why would she fall so easily and so quickly? I understand Eve a little more now.
I look back on the past 3 weeks on the field, and honestly, it’s gone by pretty quickly. Even just this church we’ve been staying in, it blows my mind that this will be my fourth day living here, when I could’ve sworn we just got here yesterday.
I know that my time here on the race will go by quickly. I’ll leave South Africa at the end of April and not understand how life was able to spring up on me like that. However, I look at this stretch of time now and it’s hard to see an end while I’m only a little past the beginning. If I’m being honest, I count down days. I look forward more than I should. I long for “my bed” at the end of the day because it means another day closer to May.
I sit here aching while writing this out because of the guilt I feel about what’s happening in my heart. At the same time, though, on this Kingdom Journey that I’m on, if I were to pretend that life is perfect all the time, it wouldn’t be much of a journey at all. So, while I lay in my bunk bed in Durres, Albania this morning, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel…but I know it’s there. I know that He’s there.
I do not doubt that this is where God has me. Even while here, He has confirmed with me over and over that the path I’m on is the one He’s called me to. As much as I dream of home, I have a confidence that it awaits me after this adventure. I will sit on the couch with my mom again, and eat at Newks with my dad before I know it.
While on my race, I never want to mask how life really is on the field. There will be triumphs and victories, but there will also be trenches and valleys. Both are equally important to go through and express. If life was always triumphant on our own, we wouldn’t need Jesus to win the victories that we can’t.
Spiritual warfare is real. It’s happening all around me and I feel it. However, as much as I feel the warfare, I see God’s hand working evermore. So, really, I am excited for this journey. I already see it growing me and my team. I have no doubts that I will not be going back to the states as the same Lauren Emily Tysdal that left. I hope she looks more like Jesus.
So, as I said before and will continue to say, I am pressing in and pressing on. Pressing in to His promises and pressing on in the race marked out for me. To God be the glory.
