It has been 253 days since I departed on a kingdom journey. A journey around the world to discover my beliefs, to build and test my character, to understand this world and my place in it. It has been 9 months since I embarked on this journey and right before I left I wrote everything I had hoped to gain from the last 9 months. This is what I wrote, “I am saying yes to the lord because I want more for my life. I want to inherit the kingdom of God. I want to have a real and personal relationship with the lord. I want to know him and be known. I want to see culture and speak language and no longer walk in fear. I want to feel and see the love of God that it is so undeniable that my spirit and heart are alight with fire that is easily seen. A fire that draws people near… A fire that allows me to walk in peace, in grace, in understanding, in knowing who I am. I am going on the World race because I want God and because I want life and life more abundantly. I am afraid and I am uncomfortable but the lord has called me here. He has called me to safety overseas. He has a grand destiny for me and I will step up to meet him even if that means being uncomfortable and laying myself down often. I want eyes to see and ears to hear and I want to know perfect love and peace. What does it mean to be joyful? To truly know God? To love all people with everything that I am. To personally know the voice and love of the lord? I want to understand! I want to surrender everything. I pray for faith.”
But The truth is that these last 9 months have wrecked me. I am no longer who I once was. The truth is that this year has been a season of wrestling. It has been nothing but a battle. A year of dying to myself over and over and over. A year of getting frustrated and angry at God and questioning why he created me. It’s been a year of surrendering every comfort, surrendering my beauty, and what I thought was worthy. It’s been exhausting and overwhelming and uncomfortable. I still sometimes doubt Gods goodness. I still have no idea what I am going to do with the rest of my life. But I do know this. I know perseverance despite struggling. I know seeking until finding. I know how to have joy whether I have everything or nothing. I know how to intentionally choose into others. I know that gold is refined by the fire. And it has been an immense blessing to walk through the fire this year and know that the lord is making something beautiful out of me.
