It has been six months.
Literally.
It has been six months since I got off a giant plane in JFK international airport and made my way home. A lot can happen in six months.
I tried writing when I got home, tried doing this, but I always made an excuse not to, always found something else to occupy myself with. It dawned on me a few months ago that I was avoiding touching my blog again because then it would mean that I would have to say it, that I would have to accept it, that by writing an “I’m home!” blog would mean that it was over, and it hurt too much to have to look back on everything and say it was the end. And it terrified me that I had to learn how to do life here.
Coming home to my family and friends was amazing. God orchestrated the perfect places and times for things to happen; the perfect loving safety nets were put around me, and new friends and opportunities were affectionately put into my hands. I was happy to be home. But things were different. And I didn’t really know how to handle it. So I didn’t handle it, I focussed on getting the things done that needed to be done.
I needed to find a place to live, so I found an amazing community house in Vancouver and felt God say “This is it, this is your home.” So I moved in.
I needed to start grad school to get my training as an Art Therapist. So I started school a month after getting home from the Race, started doing therapy with kids, started reading and writing and using my academic brain again.
I needed to get a job so I could do fun things like pay rent and have food. So I did that. I got a job at Chapters, a multi-million dollar nation wide corporation (that was a hard pill to swallow) and started getting pay checks.
For the first time since getting home, I felt like I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. God had been faithful. He had put me in a house full of diverse, amazing people. He had given me a place in a fantastic program to learn how to bring healing to people. He had given me a physical means to afford life in a big, new city. I knew in my heart and in my mind that He had put me exactly where I was for a purpose, and even though I felt totally lost a lot of the time and completely useless, I was determined to trust Him and trust in His purpose. But sometimes, I forget what trust really looks like…
I’m a creature of habit. I love routine. I am most comfortable when surrounded by a predictable schedule, especially if I get to have a nice little day planner to write in and check lists off in. God did a lot of messy work trying to get me out of my protective shell of routine while I was on the Race, but old habits die hard. And I came home to a life that needed organizing and compartmentalizing, and instead of letting Him do His thing, I did my thing. And within the time frame of a couple months, I started forgetting who I was and started becoming who I had been… because it was easy.
Easier than being every bit of who I was on the Race, because here in Vancouver, Jesus isn’t received the same, He isn’t understood the same, and I felt like if people didn’t get who Jesus was, they wouldn’t get me – I didn’t feel like I would be received the same, and I sure as heck didn’t think I would be understood at all, especially if I kept talking and acting the way I knew how to. I kept being me, but I turned down the volume on a few very big parts of myself. Deep down I knew what I needed – I needed Christian community. I needed to hear the sound of worship, I needed to feel the power of prophesy, I needed to understand the Father’s heart – but I couldn’t find it here. At least I couldn’t find it easily, and I let the business of my schedule talk louder than my spirit.
I made excuses, excuses that seemed easier at the time, but made it harder in the end. Excuses that have led to me to right here and right now, a place where I feel like I’m just barely holding it together all the time, a place where things can be going the way they’re supposed to be going, but I’ll still feel completely backwards. Heck, things are going great right now for all intensive purposes, but I failed at integrating who I had become on the Race with who I thought I should be back here in the “real” world, and it’s taken me six months to be able to come out and say it.
What I want right now is to have my squad around me, to hear their voices and feel their arms holding me, to feel the earth shaking sound of their worship flowing out, to feel the overwhelming presence of the Spirit surround us and hold us like children cradled in big, strong arms. That would be the easy way out of this mess. Tangible people – physical reminders of who God is and who I am – that would be the easy way out of this hole I’ve dug myself. But I don’t have that. I just have one thing, one tiny, measly, puny, seemingly insane thing: faith.
Faith that God loved me enough to call me to go on the World Race.
Faith that God loved me enough to call me to be right here..
Faith that God loved me enough to give me a place and a purpose.
Faith that God loved me enough to give me amazing friends and family.
But more than that, I’ve got faith that God loves me enough to teach me lessons the hard way, because that seems to be the only way I learn things. Even if He spent 11 months trying to teach me that lesson, and I still didn’t get it. He loves me enough to teach me that the only thing I have to rely on is Him, and the only thing that is going to satisfy me is Him.
So the point of all of these words is to ask for help, because even though I’m not running around the world doing crazy things, I still need your prayers and love and help. Really.
A lot has happened in six months, and I know it’s only the beginning.
(Did I mention the craziest and most wonderful part? I am engaged to an amazing man and getting married in four months. Sidenote: when God tells you you’re going to marry someone, don’t take it lightly. The Big Guy means it, and He makes it happen.)
