OOF. The World Race is hard.
At least at one time or another, every racer has those days where you just don’t want to do it anymore. You want to be home. You want the comforts of living in America and not (insert current country of ministry here). You want a real shower with hot water, or a real toilet and not a hole in the ground, or food that settles well in your stomach and doesn’t cause issues between you and that hole in the ground, etc, etc…
I’ve had plenty of those days. In all honesty, I had several of them in Africa. Living in Swaziland for 3 months was hard. Really hard. Some people thrived, some people cried, and I was definitely the latter of the bunch. Don’t get me wrong, I grew soooooo much during those 3 months. God prunes us in those hard times, on those difficult days, whether they come once every 2 months or twice every week. Some days it was worse, where it felt like I was hanging on my the skin of my teeth and was literally seconds away from catapulting off the edge of my emotional cliff, tumbling downward and downward and dooooooowwwwwnnnnnn.
Ah.
Before leaving for the race, typically racers will ask for people to write encouraging notes for them to bring on the field and open during a certain time, like for a certain reason or on a holiday while they’re away from home. Honestly, I ran out of time before leaving while I was busy losing my mind trying to pack all I needed for a year abroad, let ALONE have time to collect notes from people. But thankfully, that was already covered for me. In Christmas of 2017, my older sister gifted me with a small stack of letters, each of them titled ‘Open When…’. I had one for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, plus other ones to open when I needed an encouragement. Some were titled to open when I felt happy or sad, homesick or alone, joyful, exhausted, or even when I needed a kick in the butt (seriously, I have one titled that). As I’m getting ready to leave my 2nd country, looking back I opened sooo many of those notes during our time spent in Swaziland. I still have 5 months left and actually only have 4 notes that remain unopened. As I’ve been opening them, I tape them into one of my journals and write a small note on the side telling why I chose to open that specific letter on that specific day. Probably my favorite one so far has been titled, “Open When you’re feeling Joyful”, in which I opened on a day that holds one of my favorite memories I’ve had on the race so far.
During our week in the mountains over Christmas, we spent an hour one day in prayer, reading the Word, and reflection. We were nearing the end of our time with our ministry host family, and even our time spent in Nepal in general. During that hour I spent it working on all of the above, but mainly worked on spending time in reflection. I pulled out the journal I’ve been keeping that covers the events of the whole race so far. In it sits those notes, all of them in different and taped into random spots as they’ve been opened. I looked back on the ‘Swaziland’ part of the book, and reread each and every one of the pages. I love getting to look back on things like that, to see where I was at and where God has brought me now.
Reading through those notes, they bring a smile to my face. They remind me of the true goodness of the Lord. How He works, how He uses broken people to achieve something beautiful, and how blessed I am to have the family that I have. Oh BOY we’re so far from perfect, but that’s perfectly okay. He loves the broken ones, and I love those broken times. Lord knows I still have plenty ahead of me, but at least I have some notes with a ladybug pattern to open when they come.
