I leave to start my journey with the World Race in SIX days! It is super exciting and I am looking forward to serving with my team and experiencing everything that God has for me. At the same time this whole process of packing, saying goodbye to my friends and family, and getting things set up for my animals while I am gone has been super hard. Eleven months is a long time, and a lot can and will change in that time. I am going to miss out on so much of the lives of people that I care deeply about and that is overwhelmingly hard at times. I am trading what is comfortable and known for the opposite. But it is the hard things in my life that have produced the most growth. I have a choice to lean into God and all that He has for me in this time of transition, and trust that He has it under control, or I can try to do everything in my own strength. I know from personal experience that doing things on my own usually doesn’t turn out very well. So how can I stay rooted and established in His love with all of these crazy changes and emotions rushing through me? It starts with me taking care of me.
I was praying a few weeks ago and I asked God what the most important thing was that I should be focusing on during this time. My immediate answer was to love and take care of myself. I have historically had a hard time with this because it felt selfish to me. Why should I take care of myself when there are so many people that are hurting and need my help? What I have come to realize over the last several months (with a lot of help from several different people) is that if I don’t know how to love and care for myself, there is no way I can teach others to do that for themselves. I can’t save someone from drowning if I don’t know how to swim. So, in this time of big changes I am going to stay connected to God who is constantly filling me up, and allow myself to feel what I am feeling. I am going to give myself grace and accept that these last few days are going to be messy, and they are going to be difficult. I am not always going to have the perfect last words to say to the people that I care so much about, leaving my animals is going to wreck me, and I may not be able to get in all the last minute things I want to do. But it is going to be okay… eventually. Because God is already making a way for me: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19
I am confident that God is making a way for me, and that He will take care of my special people and animals that I am leaving behind. The Race is something that I feel called to do, and also something I really want to do. At times it will be tough, but it will be worth it, and I am going to live it to the fullest.
– Heidi
