I had a lot of fun being a part of this video, reflecting back on what I’ve learned so far and having fun dancing with friends. Enjoy seeing lessons God has taught all of us (Team Radiant and Team Veracity) and how we make music videos to celebrate our halfway point as we dance to “Livin’ on a Prayer.” After all, that is what we are doing 😉 Emily Halverson and Melissa Milroy are the ones who organized it and created it, so thanks for doing that girls 🙂
I wrote this blog on the half-way point day of our race. (June 22nd) I didn’t have a chance to post it until now.
Today is the half-way point of this world race thing that I’ve been doing. This crazy journey. It’s been 162 days and I have 162 days to go.
So now I want to tell you about what the past 162 days have really been like.
This whole “world race” thing has been totally different than what I thought it would be.
In a lot of ways it’s been so much better than anything I could have imagined.
In a lot of ways it’s also been a lot harder than I imagined.
Mostly, it’s been exactly what I have needed.
At our month 4 debrief, Betsy (one of our wonderful squad coaches) reminded us all of something extremely important.
We asked for this.
She knew that we were entering the ‘tricky season’ of the race, where thing get hard. We were starting to get very comfortable with our teammates and in turn getting frustrated with them at the same time. We were having things deep inside that we thought we dealt with begin to resurface and prove to be real issues still.
Some of us may have even questioned whether we wanted to keep going or not.
I was one of those people.
But Betsy asked us to think back to when we decided to go on the race.
What did we want to get from the race?
I remember what I wanted. I wanted to be completely transformed and totally unrecognizable after the race. I wanted to look more like Jesus and less like the old Melanie. I wanted to be a new creation.
I looked back on my notes to squeeze as much as I can from this talk Betsy gave. I have her words paraphrased below. (I try to scribble down every important thing she says. I know that I’ll go back to it all when I need to. Like now.)
“The temptation of the world is to move away from discomfort and pain and to move towards pleasure instead. In spiritual endeavors/practices, we move towards pain, away from pleasures. “
How true that our spiritual journeys are so unlike anything ‘normal’ (whatever ‘normal’ is). We are pressing into pain and discomfort in order to grow. In order to be transformed and let the race do what we hoped it would.
So here I am pushing through a tough section of the race.
But I know that it's so worth it. I know that it's what I want.
I know that the next 162 days will be wonderful if I allow them to be.
I am ready for all that the race has for me. I've made it halfway, and I've grown so much! I can't wait to grow more and more. So bring it on part 2 of this wonderful journey! Here we go, Jesus 🙂
Fundraising update: I need $1,269 to be fully funded. Technically the final deadline was July 1st (yesterday) but AIM is gracious and praying for funds to come to all racers so they can continue the rest of this unforgettable, life-changing journey. If you'd like to support me, there is a tab on the left hand side of this page (under my blog photo) and you can donate online.
Thanks for all your love, prayers, blog-following and support. 🙂
