I have been home for 4 months now and I still haven’t been able to put together an “end-of-year blog”.
Maybe it’s less that I haven’t been able to but more that I haven’t wanted to because it’s the final nail in the coffin wrapping up m year with the World Race.
To be honest, I am still processing the Race: what it meant to me, what it means for my future, everything I learned… and I still miss it every day. I miss my squad, I miss waking up in a foreign country every day, I miss the adventure and the ministry, I miss the weird food, I miss the cultures, and I REALLY miss speaking Spanish every day. Any racer can tell you how hard it is coming home and grieving the end of what has been your life for the last year. We can all relate to looking back through pictures and videos longing for the freedom and joy that came with living them.
Now before I get too carried away with the doom and gloom of missing the Race, I want to jump back to the summer of 2015 and 3 words from the gospel of John that I carried in every footfall of my trek through Europe, “So she ran”. Here’s a little context:
“Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb” John 20:1-3
Fast forward back to the Race, a year of running from the empty tomb to discover the Resurrection. I spent a whole year running and sometimes every move of my muscles hurt beyond words and broke me a little more but many times I hit that runners high as I looked around and saw the INCREDIBLE adventure God had taken me on. What a lucky girl I am to have been given such and amazing life.
It is easy to lose sight of that when the more obvious adventures end and what seems like normal life begins. But as Saint Pope John Paul II said, “Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure.”
So what’s next?
Well in a word… transition. And a few years of it at that.
I’m currently living in a crisis maternity home called Mary’s home as their resident advisor. Visit our website to learn more about our mission: www.maryshomemaryland.org
As of last week I was hired to work as a caregiver at Country Garden Nursing Home and as a substitute teacher at Saint Mary of the Mills Catholic School.
These are the things that I will be doing for the foreseeable future while in this time of transition. What am I transitioning towards you ask? Great question!
I am saving up to go back to school and get my license in counseling. It’s taken me a while to get to this realization but I feel like I have finally found what I was made to do. So for the next few years (yes years, 2-3 to be more specific) I will be working “in-between” jobs, saving up for school, working on the debt I already have, working on my own mental and physical health, and trying to take everything the Lord has taught me thus far and run with it.
It feels strange to know what my dream is but have to endure what seems like wasting time to get there. But that’s just it, preparation is never a waste of time. I can’t run a marathon without training or even getting the right shoes. So I’m going to be where I am, learn what I need to, and continue on this wonderful adventure. I’m already learning so much about who I am, what I need, and what is important.
I will need the bravery and sense-of-self that the World Race opened up to me as I dive into this next tumultuous chapter of my life, to know that a part of living my dreams is working toward them.
So thank you everyone for all of your support over this last year and throughout my life. I apologize if this reads a bit scrambled and sporadic but I am, in fact, a bit scrambled at sporadic at this point in my life. And I’m learning to trust this part of the process.
Below is the song that carried a lot of weight in my World Race journey and walk with the Lord:
