I Want Myself Back… ( I wrote this last Saturday, I’m just now able to post it…I love overseas internet!)
Landing in India was a landmark for The World Race for me. It was the end of Africa, and the beginning of Asia, our last continent for the year. While it was great to realize that in less than 4 months I will be back in the US, it’s sad that this life will end once again as I know it.
Today, this exact moment, I’m spent. We had a great location for our last debreif thanks to many who helped us secure a place with air conditioning and beds. To all of you who helped make that happen: THANK YOU. It was truely appreciated and needed. Thanks also to Michael and Kathy, our coaches, as well as Jake who came to be with us and help work some life back into us…all of you are loved and appreciated more than we could show.
Back to being spent…odd as it is, yesterday afternoon we came back to the house we plan to spend then next several weeks at…Delhi right now is extremely hot, and humid…and our house has fans, no air conditioning, it has beds with materesses that are like sleeping on a car tire. One thing I have never dealt real well with is heat, so that alone is stretching me, but wait, there’s more. For 4 years I lived alone in North Carolina, now I live in a house with 25 other people. That’s another change, but that’s not all. In Delhi, we can’t wander off on our own…not even to go to the corner store to get a snack, and if that’s not enough, the girls need 2 people to go with them because a guy and a girl can’t culturally go out alone together unless they are married. OK, so I went from keeping my house air conditioner set at 68 degrees all summer to it being 95 degrees here, from complete independence to needing to escort people to the corner store…let alone being escorted there. Oh, and this morning? Yeah, we woke up this morning to the power going out and being out of running water for several hours. Just something else I have to get used to.
I’ve lost the freedom to do so many of these things. The freedom to be cool, the freedom to go wherever I want, the freedom to sleep in a comfortable bed, the freedom to eat yummy food, the freedom to microwave popcorn and TV, the freedom to being alone, the freedom to wander around, the freedom to sanity, the freedom to whatever else I used to feel free to do…it’s all gone…for the sake of the cross.
I have to look at the cross at times like this. I get too selfish. “Look at ME! What about ME? I’m suffering! I want to go home! I want my old life back!!!” But then I look at the life of Jesus. Talk about sacrificing things for others. I’m sure that He sweat…I’m sure that He slept on the ground…I’m sure that He didn’t watch TV with microwave popcorn…all these things I think I’ve given up start to seem less significant…I didn’t get nailed to the cross, left to die alone.
But still, I admit, I’m selfish. I want to be in a nice, cool house…I want to get in my car and drive to wherever I want to go…I want to eat Outback steak and have free refills on a Coke (or Dr. Pepper)…I want to nuke some microwave popcorn and sit with friends…I want to sleep tonight on my super comfortable bed…right now, today, I want all those things…does that make me a bad person?
Well, The World Race is NO vacation…but I do admit that I wouldn’t trade it for the world! I know it sounds weird, but I actually enjoy it all. While I may suffer with some inconvient things every now and again, ultimately I’m living in the moment. I’m in India (reality check #1) living with great friends (reality check #2) experiencing God’s Kingdom firsthand (reality check #3) learning what it means to really press into lasting friendships (reality check #4) growing in God’s hand (reality check #5) finding out what’s real in life (reality check #6) helping the unhelped (reality check #7) etc etc etc (reality check #etc etc etc)
So yeah, I want myself back…I want my freedoms back. But I don’t get it. Still after all this time, I simply don’t get it, do I? I’m experiencing real life, and I want my old life back? I want that life of mundane-ness? Seriously? What am I thinking? I think the heat of India is getting to me…
Yes, it is…I wouldn’t trade this in for anything.
Thank you to all who’ve made this happen for me…seriously, THANK YOU! I’m down to $1,000 left in support to raise to finish the year, if you’d like to help with that click SUPPORT ME! On the upper left hand side. It’s been a long journey so far, and soon enough I’ll be back to USA soil, probably wondering what’s next, and soon wondering, why am I not on The World Race? Wow, I have a lot to figure out!
