Today is the exact halfway point of the Race. Five and a half months down, five and a half months to go. I have a lot of mixed emotions about this present fact, ranging from “oh my goodness we’re already halfway?!” to “…excuse me, we’re ONLY halfway?!” and everywhere in between.
So much has happened since October, when my journey began. In the last 5.5 months in the lives of my family and friends back home, babies have been born, friends have gotten engaged, wedding preparations have been made, people have passed away. I’ve missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, birthdays, and countless family get togethers. In the remaining 5.5 months from now until August, friends will get married, friends will graduate, more babies will be born, and even more major milestones will pass in the lives of those I love. I can’t believe I’ve missed so much, and it’s only half of all that will happen in the total eleven months.
But, then I remember everything that has happened in *my* last 5.5 months. I’ve traveled to six different countries on three different continents. I’ve seen sides of the world I could previously hardly even imagine. I’ve climbed ancient ruins, hiked an active volcano, baptized a dear friend in a creek, crawled through tunnels created during the Vietnam War, gotten a tattoo in a foreign country, and dipped my toes in the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve learned new dance moves from my sweet friends at a special needs home in the mountains of Honduras. I’ve taken more than one soccer ball to the face playing football with kids at orphanages in El Salvador. I’ve given haircuts to women in a remote village in Cambodia. I’ve witnessed as my teammates led Buddhists to accept Christ. I’ve given my testimony in churches in Asia and Europe, and evangelized to strangers telling them the amazing things God has done in my life. I’ve held a baby in every country we’ve been to. I’ve taught the alphabet to toddlers in Vietnam. I’ve had my heart stolen by the children I’ve met in every single new place, and left a piece of me behind with each of them. I’ve learned new words in Spanish, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Albanian. I’ve had Taylor Swift kitchen dance parties with my teammates more times than I can count. I’ve poured my heart out to the Lord in worship and watched as He poured back into me a deeper love and sense of peace than I have ever felt in my entire life. I’ve battled tarantulas, lizards, cockroaches, and lice in my living spaces, and thankfully lived to tell the tales. I’ve discovered some of my new favorite foods: fry jacks, papusas, pho, strawberry Oreo’s, and crepes.
Everyone’s favorite question already while I’m on the Race, and what I’m sure will only increase when I’m actually home in 5.5 months, is “so what have you learned so far?” I could give an 8-part TedTalk on this seemingly simple question alone. But I’ll attempt to sum it up as best as I can: I’ve learned that real love, the way God intended it to be, is an action, not a feeling. I’ve learned that joy is a choice. I’ve learned that surrendering everything in your life, even the good things or good people God gave you in the first place, is the only way to eventually make them even better things. I’ve learned that life is an adventure, and to look at it any other way is an irresponsible waste of time. I’ve learned to believe not in myself, but in the Jesus in me. I’ve learned that life is complicated, and at times unbearable, but the only way we’re ever going to get through it is by fully depending on the Father. I’ve learned to tackle the hard things by first simply breathing. I’ve learned how to find my voice as a leader, and it isn’t the loudest one in the room. I’ve learned that my feelings, though vast, intense and overwhelming, do not dictate the character of God.
My teammates and I were talking the other night about how we’ve reached the point in the Race where we can all feel that there’s been a change in each of us. Almost a complete 180 from the people we walked into this as in October. But we can’t quite put our fingers on what exactly has changed. I feel the change in me, but I can’t see it yet and most likely won’t until I find myself trying to fit back into the life I left at home. The puzzle won’t have changed very much, but I already know that I’m different. I’m a different piece, one that may not fit so seamlessly anymore into all I left behind.
In these last 5.5 months, I haven’t lived in fear. I haven’t had a single catastrophic breakdown or crisis of epic enneagram four proportion where I suddenly question every facet of my life and doubt the meaning of human existence. To be clear, my 20 years of life before the Race can be mapped by these breakdowns. They were frequent, and they wrecked me. It’s no wonder I’ve always struggled with anxiety and lack of self-confidence when I couldn’t ever be sure of anything, for the tiny voice in the back of my mind reminding me I’m due another meltdown any day now. I haven’t doubted, and I haven’t questioned myself or God in this first half of the Race, because I’ve never in my life been so sure that I am exactly where I’m meant to be.
On October 4, 2018, the last thing I did before launching on the Race the next day was see the movie A Star Is Born in theaters twice in a row. I didn’t exactly plan it, but ended up with the opportunity to see it twice in one night, and decided it would make a great story for my last night of American life for eleven months. As most of us know, this isn’t exactly a happy tale. Knowing nothing about this movie except the fact that it stars my queen Lady Gaga, I thought this would be a fun thing to do in my last night of normal life. Instead, it wrecked me to pieces.
Leading up to launching on the Race, I put up a great front and didn’t let myself get emotional saying goodbye to each of my family members and friends. Several of which hugged me while crying their eyes out, but each time I stood there taking a deep breath and telling myself “we aren’t even going to go there”. I knew if I opened the floodgates and allowed myself to shed even a single tear, I wouldn’t get on the plane to Belize. But then I found myself walking out of the movie theater in Memphis after having my heart unexpectedly ripped out of my chest by A Star Is Born. As I got in my car and drove across town to then immediately go see it again with my friend Liz, something in me snapped and I lost it. I don’t know how I didn’t wreck my car. I was full-on, ugly scrunch-faced, snot-nosed, sobbing with everything in me. I started out shedding a few tears for Bradley Cooper’s character, and then suddenly I was feeling the gravity of what I was about to do with my life, the fact that I wouldn’t see a single face of anyone I love for eleven months. I didn’t want to go anymore. It didn’t matter that I had $14,000 raised at that point and all my bags packed, ready to leave the next morning. I was wracking my brain that entire drive to the next theater thinking about how I could get out of going on the Race. I watched the movie again with Liz, this time sitting there the whole time asking the Lord to give me peace to back out of going. But He pointed out a line from the movie to me instead, one that I haven’t been able to get out of my head for six months since: “we’re far from the shallow now.” In that moment, hearing those words, it felt like God was grabbing my face like that of a child and gently speaking over me, “Mal, we’re far from the shallow now.”
Last week, I watched A Star Is Born for the first time since then with my teammates all crowded on the couch in our apartment for the month in Fier, Albania. I thought about how far I’ve come in this first half of the Race, how far the Lord has brought me, and how we’ve now come full circle back to those words. If I had to sum up my experience on the Race thus far, all that God’s done in and through me, it would be that very same line. He has brought me out here wading in the deep, miles from the shore. But we’re still only halfway, with an entire ocean left undiscovered.
I was insanely eager for the Race to begin. Sometimes, in the hard moments, I’m eager for it to end. But, sitting here today, at the halfway point of the best year of my entire life, I can’t believe how in love I am with the Father and with my life, and how much more of this particular chapter of it I still have left to live.
To my parents, thank you first for not laughing in my face when I told you I planned to raise $18,200 and travel the world serving for eleven months. And for then doing what you always do, and going all-in to support and help me accomplish this crazy dream. I’ve never loved and appreciated you both more than these last six months I’ve had to spend without you.
To my siblings, Zach, Kass, & Casi, thank you for being my best friends, my favorite people in the world, and my hardest goodbyes. You’ve kept me afloat more than you could ever know.
To Grandma & Grandpa Jim, Memaw, Grandpa, Papaw, and Gigi, thank you for being some of my biggest supporters. For never once losing faith in me, and for filling me with every ounce of your love and pride that gave me the courage to say yes in the first place.
To Lillie, Lyndsey, Caroline, and Liz, thank you for being my safe places, my biggest fans, for believing in me in the all too frequent times I don’t believe in myself. Thank you for being vessels the Lord continuously uses to speak His truth and wisdom into my life. I’m so lucky to know and be loved by each of you.
To all those who have supported me, I can’t ever say thank you enough. I’m here because of your generosity and selflessness. To all my people, whether mentioned by name or not, thank you for believing in me. Thank you for walking alongside me, for being my cheerleaders, for encouraging and supporting me every step of the way for the last eighteen months to today.
We’re far from the shallow now.
