It’s been great being home, but I’m not gonna lie, it’s been hard.
Coming home and seeing my house, my hometown, my church, my friends, I feel like a million years has passed this year, but it feels like a dream, because even though I feel like I’ve changed so much, I feel like I just pressed play on my old life and nothing has really changed.
Almost instantly I felt the nagging of old habits and temptations that I gained freedom from. This year has been the most freedom I’ve ever felt in my life, but now that I’m home it feels like a lot of that freedom just evaporated. The self-deprecating humor, the sleepless nights full of anxiety, the overwhelming stress of an ever-growing to-do list, and no sign of the peace that used to keep me steady when trials would come on the Race.
So what is different about the me at home and the me on the Race?
Well… That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
The day before we went to the airport in Madrid I had a prophetic dream that our plane crash landed literally feet before the runway of the airport, and we landed in someone’s back yard. No one on the plane was hurt, but the plane was down for the count. The guy who owned the house came out and was angry that we crashed in his yard, but his wife had a different attitude. She came out with lemonade and snacks and invited us to hang out and relax. Then, after spending time with the family, we wanted to worship. We all had candles and we all decided to worship in the crashed plane in the candle light. 2 of my old teammates were next to me. One lit his candle just by praying to God. I tried that, too and it worked, but in the middle of singing I accidently blew it out. The teammate on the other side of me offered me a match to re-light my candle, so I did.
Every time I share this dream or think back to it, God gives me a new revelation. Now that I’m home, I feel a bit like the plane crash. I feel broken and lost, and like I was so close to the finish line, but just missed something. Adjusting back into American life, and feel a bit like a square peg in a round hole. I can say what I need to say to fit in, and I can play the part, but I no longer feel like I truly “fit”. So many things have happened at home that I’m discovering all at once and it’s a lot to take in at once, and I just feel like a bit of a mess.
I didn’t think it would be this hard. After spending a month moving from country to country with constantly shifting cultures and languages, whats the difference between a travel day from ethiopia to Romania and a travel day from Spain to the USA?
Well, the people in Romania didn’t know me. They didn’t know my family, my friends, my past, my failures, my successes. I just got to be a missionary. They saw me in such a pure way, and I had complete control over what they could know about me. I could share everything or nothing, but regardless of how much I shared, they would only know it from my perspective. They wouldn’t hear the gossip from every other angle. They only knew mine, which even in the darkest parts of my testimony, I could lighten up from my perspective if I chose to.
I don’t have that control at home.
Everyone who knows me has an opinion about me, and they know different parts of my story, but they saw it happen, so they all have their own angles, too. Being home, my mind is no longer centered on the Lord, but it’s focused on what other people are thinking about me or saying about me. That was something that wasn’t even on my mind this year because it didn’t need to be. Now I’m suddenly aware of how vulnerable I am just by being around people I know and people who know me.
But what do they know? They know who I was when I was a toddler and how I grew into the 20-something I am today and they knew every step I took to get to this place. They know my family, my friends, my work history. They know a lot about me. But are those the things that define me.
NO.
And I know that now.
So why am I so worried about what they think of me? Well, it because they don’t know the extent of how God has changed me this year. I’m not an LVC graduate; I’m a worshipper of the most high God, blessed with the opportunity to equip myself to do that to the best of my ability. I’m not a child of Jim and Felecia Summy; I’m a child of the King, blessed with earthly parents who have taught me to love the Lord. I’m not a World Race Alumni; I am a daughter who was called to worship among the nations God opened a door for me to be able to do that.
I am not defined by the things of this world. I am defined by my creator, and I may not have the ability to change what people know about me, but I can change the perspective.
So like the plane crash, I do feel a little bit like a crash landed home, but instead of stepping out of the plane and walking away from it, I’m going to praise God through it, and press into Him and keep my focus on Him. I may feel broken sometimes just from having to adjust to my new life so quick. Unfortunately, we live in a broken world. We were born into brokenness, and the world we see is only, at best, the tip of the iceberg of God’s glory. The only true perfection we can have is when we are living in communion with God. It is only with God that our brokenness is healed, and even if the world breaks us time and time again, God will heal us every time. So I’m not broken. I’m not gonna let the world break me, but that’s my choice. I can choose to run from God when I’m struggling, or run to Him. I know what I want to choose, and I will choose it even when the world tells me not to. I’ve seen too much of God’s glory and felt too much of God’s freedom to go back to how I was before, and I hope that the freedom and power I carry through the Holy Spirit can inspire others to run to God, too.
But it’s easy to just fit a mold, and to just be who people expect you to be, and I hope every time I choose to defy and to be who I know I am. I’d love to say that I’ll choose that every time, but I probably won’t. I already slipped up in that regard, but thank the Lord for grace. I just keep praying that I can live as someone who is changed, and it’s a prayer I’ll probably have to pray every day for a while until it becomes natural again, but I know I have teammates next to me and a God above who will help me along the way.
