Recently I’ve been experiencing a flurry of mixed emotions when it comes to thinking about the World Race. There are moments of extreme excitement followed by moments of ……. Most of this has to do with what I realize I’ll be leaving behind this next year. It’s as if I’m already going through a mourning season about everything that I’m not going to be here for and the truth is that this has been really difficult. See, it kind of seems like my life was at a completely different stage when I first signed up for the race in August than it is now.
I’ve had an incredibly supportive group of friends around me and for the past several years they had been pouring into my life. However they are all young married couples in varying stages of beginning families, very different from myself, so I knew leaving them for a year would be a bit difficult, but something I could handle. Well God decided that immediately after I committed myself to going on the World Race was the perfect time to flood my life with relationships. These past few months since I’ve agreed to go on the world race have been really really GOOD. The growth, the love and the acceptance I’ve found from those around me has been pretty amazing. The closer and closer I get to July the more and more I realize just how sad I am going to be saying goodbye to my parents and this new “family” for a year and to be honest all this makes facing the idea of leaving incredibly difficult.
In January I found myself pretty upset with God, I just kept asking Him why. Why now? Why would you give all this GOOD and then ask me to walk away from it all? Why would you purposely break my heart like this? I mean I know that as Christians we’re promised hardship, but I didn’t realize it could come in this form. It wasn’t until about a month later that I started to understand what it was that God was trying to teach me –To trust that the plans He has for my Life are for my GOOD!
While on my way to meet some of my squadmates ( who are AWESOME btw) I was listening to a Chip Ingram sermon about God’s Goodness and it was as if I received a spiritual slap upside the head. He was talking about how God wants GOOD for our lives. That if we think that by following God’s plans we’ll be missing out on something good then we are believing a complete and total lie!
“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” – Romans 8:32
It hit me, that the root of all my anger with God was because I did not TRUST that His plans are for GOOD in my life. I needed to see that what He has given me and what he has already done in my life is AMAZING, but He has even BETTER in store…. THAT’S INCREDIBLE! (Yea… this has really been blowing my mind… )
So these past few months have really been about me just learning to soak in God’s Goodness and to trust in the plans that he has for my life, it may not be easy but I TRUST in the path He has for me. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to miss my family and friends like crazy, I’m sure there will be many tears shed and moments of extreme homesickness but I know and trust that this is all for my Good.
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” – C.S. Lewis
-Jess
p.s. My awesome roommate introduced me to this song tonight and it really spoke to me and seemed perfect to share 🙂 Enjoy!
