The only way I can describe it.
I am wide awake at 3 am with a heart so full of emotions that tears fill my eyes, no sleep in sight.
How can a heart feel so much? It seems 10 times its size.
Full of so much joy and love yet sadness of letting go. The end and a beginning, a leaving and a coming home.
How can a place halfway across the world feel like home and people I just met 3 weeks ago feel like family?
And at the same time my heart misses the ones I haven’t seen in 11 months. The ones who’ve known me my whole life, the ones I swear I love more than anything in the world and truly mean it! The brothers and mother, the very best friends, the family I’ve shared stories about, prayed for and celebrated their birthdays, milestones and victories from afar. The ones who knew me long before this trip. The ones who’ve supported me through love, prayer, money, texts, emails and comments on my photos and blogs. The ones who will greet me with big hugs and tears. The ones who will want to know all my stories. The ones who’ve prayed for my safety and trusted it in God’s hands. The ones I’ve been counting down the whole race to see again.
And then the people I have spent every second with the last 11 months. The ones who I have shared everything with even when I wanted to not be talked to, to just go somewhere, anywhere, alone! Instead I shared every moment, food, memories, tears, laughter, homesickness, 30 hr bus rides, international plane flights, nights spent on floors of airports and bus terminals, dreams, fears, blankets, pillows, toilet paper, medicine, clothes, shoes, socks, brokenness, redemption, joy, grace, forgiveness, the worst and the best of ourselves and the days we were completely over one other, the Race, another country, another time zone, another language, another continent, another tradition, etc. We shared it all. And now I have to let them go back to their lives at home while I go back to mine.
How can a heart feel all of this at once?
And then on top of it all I feel the love of my Father! The crazy, powerful, overflowing, overwhelming, constant, amazing perfect love of my Daddy! Not just an all powerful God but an all loving Papa. He did not just bring me through these 11 months, He brought me through victoriously! He redeemed my hopes and dreams! He took my brokenness and gave me beauty! He loved me back to life! He showed me His love through every person around me. He taught me grace, mercy and forgiveness. He restored my faith.
And then He taught me how to love myself. He taught me how to let go of expectations and entitlement. He taught me how to be humble instead of clinging to prideful ways. He taught me how to love widows and orphans, those who love and hate me, the rich and the poor, the believers and non believers, all of His children. He taught me how to truly live. He broke down my walls and taught me how to trust Him with my whole heart, my life, my past, my present and my future. He taught me how to give Him my fears and He would give me His peace instead. He taught me who He really is and who I am really am.
He gave me more than I could have ever dreamed or comprehended when I came on this Race 11 months ago.
And now it’s time to say goodbye to this life, to this unique community I’ve come accustomed to, this safety net of always having each other to lean on and lift each other up, it’s time to say goodbye to the World Race.
Say goodbye to the 45 people who have been my family for 11 months.
Say goodbye to this crazy lifestyle. To living out of a backpack. To moving every month. To cold showers. To ugly clothes. To carbs for every meal! To no alone time. To not having 7 people around all the time to aggravate, annoy, encourage, grow and love me all at the same time!
To say goodbye to the third world and all its discomforts.
And say hello to the comfort of a bed, air conditioning, hot showers, driving my own car, by myself, without anyone going with me, to eating what I want when I want it, to cell service, to washing and drying my clothes in a washing machine and dryer instead of by hand or paying for it, to not having to pay for wifi, to Southern food, Chickfila, Whole Foods, having a job that pays money, working out at a gym, hello America!
Hello to a new life at home. The new me at home. To figure out what’s next! Where will I work, live, go to church and volunteer? What does this next season look like?
What does my life look like?
Right now, all I know is a bursting heart. And I couldn’t be more grateful! I feel like the luckiest person in the whole world! A heart filled with so much love. I heart that has pieces all over the world. A heart that mourns having to say goodbye to the people I love so much yet gets to see more people I love very soon! I feel like the richest person to be able to feel so many emotions at once. My heart is bursting with so many feelings.
I am so thankful for this journey! I am so thankful for what God has done! I am so thankful that I have people at home I have loved and missed so much and now I have people all over the world who I will love and miss once I get home!
Please be praying for my heart and eyes (they will be eternally puffy!) this next week! Please pray I will thank God for all the goodbyes and the long awaited homecoming (I CAN’T WAIT!), because it is SO rich to love SO much. It is a rich life indeed, living life with a bursting heart.
