Dear Perspective, you are a funny thing, hard to capture, elusive.
I was talking with a teammate the other day and she said something so simple. “Time is different on the Race.” So simple, and yet so true.
It got me thinking about time, about home, about the goings on here and there. It’s so hard to try to think about it. Because time is different here on the Race. We measure it in countries and how much we’ve learned “since Guatemala.”
We’ve been doing that for “so long” now that it’s weird to rememberer that it’s not a normal thing to do. It feels like we’ve grown and matured so much in God, in ourselves, and learning the lessons put in front of us that it’s been a small eternity since we started the Race.
Dear Perspective, sometimes I’m told to get you, to take a hold and to not let go. But when that happens do you look like a microscope or the view from the nest of a hawk?
Four years ago, when I traveled to Mozambique, the program to learn about being a missionary was ten weeks long and in the heat of even their winter, I thought it’d never end. College was four years of crazy fun and hard studies and last minute projects and tests, but it flew by.
We passed the ten week mark sometime in Panama, but there was no celebration, no milestone marked. And why should there have been? It was probably just another day of ministry, the celebration would have been doing another day well and bringing lift to our host. But in Mozambique it marked the day we left for home, maybe even arrived back across the pond. And now, we’ve just begun our time here.
We’ve grappled with concepts of dying to ourselves time and time again and drawing closer to God in any way we know how. That alone is more than what happened in Mozambique and college combined. I’m not saying those weren’t times of learning or that they weren’t important, just the opposite, but it’s still strange to think about, because I’ve definitely grown harder and faster in the Lord since my time on the Race than probably any other time of my life.
Dear Perspective, paint me a picture, what do you see? How do you see me? There’s so much work left to do and I need your eyes. I’m remodeling my house, I’m remodeling me, and I need to know what areas to demolish and reconstruct next.
Recently, one of my teammates showed me very clearly how I have been failing to love her well; to see her needs and address them as a functioning and caring member of our community. It made me realize that it’s not only her I’ve been failing, but the majority of my team as well.
Acknowledging that was hard. Apologizing for that was hard. But the only way to move forward is to look when all you want to do is ignore. Forward is the path that is decidedly rocky, but definitely better than the slope I just climbed which is Backward.
Seeing that I’ve been failing to love someone, multiple someones, well for four months puts a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, it’s been four months, what have I been doing for my whole life?
See what I mean about perspective? The Race already feels like a lifetime . . . usually in the best way possible.
But having that pointed out to me now, at least gives me the option to work on it now, to be aware and address it in the future. And I still have over half of my Race left. That’s more than enough time for me to be intentional about seeing and loving, right?
Dear Perspective, you have the keenest sight; it’s not just me, who else do you see?
Another thing we’ve been thinking about is the concept of home and the people who are there. For most of you, this is probably just another January. Whatever passes for “cold” in your state right now, you’re experiencing it. For many of you, you’re still doing the nine to five thing, making time to see friends, go to the store, catch up on your favorite TV show, or finish that project that is still hanging over your head.
That’s strange because right now, I can tell you it’s going to be a hot day in Maseru and I’m wearing a tank top and my lightest weight pants. I can also tell you that we have less than ten days until we leave these kids and all the people we’ve met in this country and it feels like we just got here. Mostly because it’s true. We’ve only been here about two weeks now. But I have to get ready to move on, to travel to Somewhere, South Africa for debrief and then on to Swaziland for another couple of weeks. I am measuring my time by countries and the lessons I learned there, the jokes that were made in each one, the songs that I listened to there that will forever remind of that street, that view, that ministry.
Huh, maybe at the end of the Race, I’ll make a blog about which songs and artists remind me of which countries. But that’s a half-baked thought for another time.
Dear Perspective, leaving so soon?
Every day here is different. Every month, a different color, flavor, scent. New cultures and languages swirl by us in a whirlwind and we have to reach out with two hands to capture and keep any of it for ourselves.
I’ve been told it takes six months of living a certain way for it to become “normal.” What is normal? Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not this. But that doesn’t make it a bad thing. Either way, I know that as we go along in our own little World Race bubble, this, whatever it is, will become more normal and that’s the perspective that will become more and more natural for me to see. I know we’re in a pressure cooker right now, learning everything we possibly can about God and ourselves while serving others. And it’s similar to college in that, after the first semester, or the first month, it all goes by faster after that. I guess I just don’t want to miss any of it. I wanted to take a moment and look at the situation from a couple different points of view.
If you stayed with me this long, here’s to you. Thanks for trying to keep up with me through all of these half-baked thoughts. I hope you gained something out of it. Mostly this was just to help me get an idea out of my head so I can see it more clearly and honestly, I have no idea if any of it made sense. Good luck.
If you haven’t already, please check out what our team is doing for the kids we’re living with at www.give.adventures.org/lesothobibles
See you next week.
Love,
TL
