One of the most exquisite minds to ever walk this Earth (a.k.a. Ky McKenzie) got me thinking about oxygen after a conversation that we had a few days ago.
In and out, in and out. That’s how it works. You have to breathe IN in order to stay alive, but you also have to breathe OUT so that you don’t pass out or die.
Is it not the same spiritually? We have to breathe in the Lord (scripture, prayer, etc.) in order to survive. BUT, we also have to breathe — what we learn and what he gives to us — back out so that it doesn’t lead to spiritual death.
Cool thoughts, right?
So, Month two is about to end. I’m feeling all the things and don’t quite know what’s going on in my mind, but it’s fine. It’s all fine.
Goodbyes are real hard. It’s hard to desire to make good relationships because you KNOW that the goodbye is coming eventually. I struggled through that a whole lot last week.
Why would I make relationships if I would have to say goodbye? Why would the Lord give me such GOOD gifts if he was just going to take them away? It’s hard. The World Race life is hard, and it’s hard to make such good bonds and then have to go separate ways.
Also, next month starts tomorrow (here I come BOTSWANA!!) and we’ll be going from half a squad to just our teams. I’m pumped. I will love and fight for my team until the day that I die. HOWEVER, I got super close to a few gals that aren’t on my team. In other words, girls that I won’t be seeing for two whole months. And that’s just really hard.
But then I realized something: I have received an INSANE amount of good, good, good things from these precious friends of mine. Conversations that I never want to forget. Talks that have changed the way that I think. Encouragement that has shaped me to the core. Freedom that has only begun, and chains that have only started to break. Seriously life changing things have come from this community.
And it’s going to be one of the hardest things to leave that. It’s going to be hard not to have access to those people and their wisdom. They have given me the coolest glimpses of the Lord’s heart. And if they love and care for me as much as I know that they do, how much MORE does my Father love and care for me? Craziness. Endlessly thankful for these people.
But since I breathed in, I have to breathe back out. I have to breathe back out EVERYTHING that they’ve taught me. All of the ways that they’ve challenged me and shaped me I get to bring to others. I get to carry them with me because of how much they’ve shaped me. What an HONOR. I am absolutely humbled by the privilege of carrying a piece of someone’s life with me. I get to think about the ways they’ve challenged me and bring it to the Lord. I get to work through all of the things that they helped me discover. And that’s almost as cool as getting to know them in the first place.
In other words, the Lord is awesome. Friendships are sweet. Goodbyes are hard. But I’m super pumped to see what the Lord is going to do in Botswana these next two months. I have a feeling it’s going to be insanely good.
-Lyss
Hey, thanks so much for reading. Thanks for being interested enough and INVESTED enough in my life that you would take the time to do that. I can’t even explain how much it means to me.
