Sorry this is so late! I wrote this blog about a month and a half ago, sitting in the Indian airport. Buuuut, wifi isnt really a thing where I am living. It is still so relevant so please give it a read!
The hardest thing I have ever done in my life, up until I left Ecuador, was hike Pike’s Peak: a 14er in Colorado.
The last hour, was the hardest hour of the entire hike.
My feet felt like they were about to fall off after nine hours of hiking up and then back down a mountain,
and I had convinced myself that
my toenails were gonners.
After I tripped over a rock, my kne started to bleed through my leggings, and my poncho was ripped from that same stupid rock.
The poncho still
managed to provide me just enough relief from the freezing cold rain that had been following us, grim and determined, for the past few hours.
And my stomach? My stomach was just plain confused.
Hungry, but a greasy donut had compelled it to revolt against itself. Okay, maybe I had eaten two greasy donuts.
(There were special donuts at the top- don’t ask questions. Just be thankful, okay?)
I was pretty darn close to seeing those donuts again if we didn’t get back
to the trailhead soon. My shoulders ached from carrying my backpack full of water that was supposed to help ward off altitide sickness. It didn’t.
I had a raging headache.
Oh, and I had to pee. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse (my first mistake) the rain turned to hail.
Then I thought, “Surely, thats it! It cannot get much worse!” (my second mistake) and lightning struck accompanied by a thunder so loud that my entire family dropped
to our hands and knees. As if getting a few feet lower could make the situation better.
By the time we made it to the trail head we were pretty much beat. Not to mention we were soaking wet.
I got into the shelter of my family’s lil’ minivan and let out a pathetic groan.
We had finally made it.
You may have had to give me a day to glue myself back together, but I would have done it all over again. It was simply one of the best days of my life.
At the beginning, I said that it was the hardest thing I have ever done, UNTIL I left Ecuador. I said that for a reason, because compared to leaving Ecuador,
that last hour of my hike was a walk in the park. A FLAT walk in the park.
I am having a hard time articulating in this blog, because it is hard to put feelings like these into words that makes any lick of sense.
My heart was shattered.
It broke my heart knowing that I wasn’t going to see the people that I have grown to love and call close friends and forever family, until I came back to Ecuador.
I was thankful however, even though saying goodbye was so challenging. The “hello” was undoubtedly worth the hard “goodbyes”.
I was full of longing. I wish with my whole heart that everyone that I had met would know with assurance how much I grew to love them. Even during my short time
there. Furthermore, that they would know that God loves them exponentially more than I could ever love them.
I was determined to never let these relationships slip through my fingers. I plan to maintain these friendships for years to come and I am committed to make
that happen. These people that I have met mean far too much to me.
Now, I am not the kind of person who cries all of the time. Though, ASPCA comercials and youtube videos of soldiers coming home get me everytime with a few tears.
But I cried hysterically, more times within the last week in Ecuador than I ever have in my entire life. There were the lone tears that just slipped out,
all the way to the full out ugly cry, you know the one. The cry that you still try and hold together, but it just doesn’t work.
I didn’t think that I had any tears left.
I knew that saying goodbye would be hard when I came to Ecuador, but I really underestimated just how hard it would be.
I had underestimated the impact that someone can have in your life in just three short months.
I underestimated love.
One of the last times that I was speaking with one of my students, I told them that I really loved them.
Then I asked a killer question.
“Do you believe me?”
They replied, “no.”
So I proceeded to ask them why.
They said that it was imossible to actually love someone in such a short time.
Just three months prior to that conversation we had no idea that the other person even existed. How could I love them if I knew so little about them?
I am positive that the majority of people reading this blog hold the exact same belief.
I do not think that is right. Hold on a sec, let me explain to you why.
You, and my friend, have underestimated love too.
Let me tell ya’ll a little bit about love, God’s Love.
Love is patient love is kind… yada yada. An amazing verse of the Bible, not to discredit it at all, it is 110% true. Love is also something else.
Love is HUGE love is POWERFUL love has IMPACT and creates RADICAL CHANGE. Love is REVOLUTIONARY and SACRIFICIAL. The kind of love that Jesus shows me (and you) is
LIFECHANGING.
His love is FEIRCE and let me tell ya, there is a crap ton of it!
The Lord’s love fills us up to the brim- and then it overflows. It just keeps pouring, and pouring.
When we as Christians have the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can’t help it, that love just spills out.
Think. If you are pouring water into a glass, and don’t stop when it gets full, what will happen? It overflows, right?
Same with Love. And all of that extra love has got to go somewhere.
Basically, Jesus loves me so much, that there is all of this extra love that spills out. I get the opportunity to find something to do with it.
I choose to take all of that extra powerful love that is being poured into me, and pour it into others.
That is how it is possible to truly, and purely love someone after only three months.
I have a lot of extra Jesus-love to give.
Being able to love someone after such a short time seems impossible, it does not make sense.
But Jesus-love isn’t concerned about making sense, it is too radical. It is just all about truly loving people. That is it.
I underestimated just how hard it would be to leave people that I had been able to truly love.
So maybe that is why saying goodbye was so hard.
One of the times that I was ugly crying (but still trying to hold it in) I thought, “How in the world will I be able to do this again in three months
when I leave India? It is even possible to do this again?”
But then, In the middle of my ugly cry, and the pain of leaving. I decided that I would.
Because even if you have to give me a day to glue myself back together, I would do it all over again, because those were some of the best days of my life.
