They say on the Race that days are long, but months are short. For the most part I haven’t experienced this—though my opinion may change by the time I get to month eight or nine. Right now, I feel each day. I feel each month. I’ve felt the weight of being gone from home. I feel that I’ve been gone for four months, and I know I’m not even halfway through. I feel the weight of missing family. I feel the weight of missing my siblings’ volleyball games, of missing coffee with Aliyah, skating with Nathan. Camping and hiking, game nights with my brothers. I’ve been gone for four months. It’s the longest I’ve been away from home. That’s in no way a desire to be home instead of here, but I have a longing for home in a way that I’ve never experienced in the past.
But I’m honestly grateful for that longing. I’m grateful for that pain. On one hand that pain means that I have something to come home to, but it’s also such an honor now, in this moment, to feel those longings. Last month, during a moment of rebuke from the Lord, He showed me joy in the midst of hardship. He showed me what a privilege it is to miss home for Him. I see the redemption in that. I see a full circle, where the Lord has brought me from rebellion, from a place of sin and blaspheming, to a place where I can advance His kingdom. It’s the completion of a character arc. Like the return of Anakin Skywalker, the redemption of Oskar Schindler, Paul’s moment of conviction and change. It’s amazing that that’s the God we serve. That we can go from places of outright rebellion, to places of influence in His kingdom.
That’s such a beautiful thing. That He doesn’t just forgive us, doesn’t just redeem and transform, but He allows us to then take up roles in the advancement of His kingdom—something that we have no claim to outside of the sonship that He chooses to give us. I do feel pain of being away from home. I feel that weight. But it’s so beautiful. I’m grateful beyond words that the Lord has allowed me to suffer—even if only in this minor way—for Him. It gives value and urgency to action, it spurs change and desires for growth when the gravity of what the Lord has done in my life is realized. And I know it’s in no way something unique to me and my walk. That’s just the type of God that He is. That while we were still sinners He died for us. That while we were His enemies, He put on flesh and carried the weight of our sins. That though we were unworthy of redemption, He constantly redeems. And not just to the point of being made clean, but to the point of Him calling us friends and inviting us into the ways that He is already working.
Christmas Day was easily the hardest day of the Race for me. I read letters from home while listening to Christmas music—a genre that I have never cared for in the past. I got teary as I read letters from family, I smiled as I read the script of an Office Christmas episode that one of my friends included in his letter (thanks Levi). And while I sat alone, knowing that I was missing family traditions that I haven’t missed in 20 years, I drew a picture in journal, just an abstract portrait of the Lord wearing His crown of thorns. I thought of how tragic it is that that baby was born to die. How perverse for the God and King and Lord of the universe to step down from His thrown and become the lowliest of us, passing through pain and humiliation beyond comprehension. I thought of my own rebellion, my own sin, being the strokes that nailed Him to the cross. And I’m without words that while He was hanging he cried out to His Father, “forgive them.” And because of that, I’m here 2,000 years later with the opportunity, the privilege and honor of preaching the realness of what He did and what He does daily. What an honor it is to miss my family when this is what I get to live.
“I want to be home with my family. I want traditions, gift exchanges, family dinners, time with them. But I am lost in wonder that this infant was born to die. Born to redeem mankind. To reconnect us with our Father. Thank You for coming as an infant 2,000 years ago to grow and walk as a man, eventually to die with the weight of my sins nailing you to that cross. You are good. I will leave my family a thousand times if you say the word.” – An excerpt form my journal entry on Christmas Day, 2018
