To the girl at home prepping for the race
You know you’re preparing for something big and life altering and you still feel like you don’t quite pack your bags perfectly, or maybe you regret not spending more quality tine with your family, but you feel like you’ve got all the right events planned out to ensure the best way to say goodbye to the people you’re gonna leave for 11 months. You’ve planned out how you’re gonna keep in touch with your closest friends and family, and ensure you don’t miss too many of the big life events happening at home.
Or maybe you’re already beginning to have the hard conversations with your boyfriend about how hard its gonna be to be apart, and what you’re gonna do to keep the spark alive even if you don’t have wifi to communicate for months. Maybe you know he’s the one and you feel guilty for worrying what’s gonna happen to your relationship or where you’re gonna be after the race. Or maybe you’re thinking it might just be best to do the pre-race break up like a lot of other people on your squad. But even that might not feel right. So maybe you’re just stuck in this weird tension of feeling completely full of faith for you two, while simultaneously also worried and maybe even scared how much you might change.
Maybe you’re working two jobs trying to make the ends meet for fundraising deadlines coming up, and get the gear you need for training camp thats right around the corner, or for launch thats scary close.
Maybe you’re wildly excited to see the world and meet God in these new places you’ve never been and these new people you’ve never met. But at the same time maybe you’re worried about how the heck to communicate with people who for sure don’t speak the same language as you.
Or maybe you’re just worried about being with a new group of people for 11 months. 11 people that will become your community, your family. Its true, they don’t know you, all your junk, all the stuff you’re currently struggling at home, and all the sin patterns that you’re currently choosing to continue, or return to. Maybe even after training camp. They don’t know any of it. Yet. They don’t even really know you yet, or and maybe you don’t even really know you yet.
Maybe you’re worried about how the heck your student loan payments will be taken care of when you’re gone. Or how you’re gonna refill your malaria medication, or schedule the put off doctors appointments to get your vaccinations. Or how you’re gonna pay for the vaccinations you feel strongly you should get no matter how many people on your squad are risking it and not getting them.
Either way it probably feels like you have to figure all the things out, prepare everything in the best way possible, financially, physically, spiritually, relationally, emotionally, etc.
Well…here’s the thing…no matter how “well” you prep for the race you will never be prepared for the things the Lord will show you, the situations you will find yourself in, the spiritual growth you will go through, or the heartbreak you will experience.
There’s just no way.
The amount of growth you will experience in 11 months, heck even 8, is unpredictable, totally unknown, and absolutely amazing if you let it be. And there is no physical thing I think I could have done better or worse to prepare for it.
Yeah maybe I have an ongoing list of thing is wish I wouldn’t have brought, would have brought, would have dowloaded etc. but I wouldn’t have changed anything about the way I packed. Each thing I didn’t bring I had to depend on the Lord to provide. And he always showed up. He even provided for some of the things I wanted on top of the things I needed!
No matter how many packing videos you watch (I watched zero), or alumni racer blogs you read, or deeply enriching christian books you read, theres no way you can be more or less prepared then you will be when you leave.
So if you’re anything like me you probably need to hear this right now, and probably 10 times a day for the rest of your life. YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH.
You cannot control or prepare for some of the biggest or greatest things that will happen to you this year. And that’s the point. God invites us into the beauty of the unknown and into the surrender of control all the time. And something its so so hard, but trust me, its good.
YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH.
There is nothing more or less you can do to prepare for what the race has for you. That’s just how life works, the unexpected happens all the time and we have no control, and its actually better that we don have control.
Oh man, the race will be filled with plenty of moments where you’ll just sit there in the midst of whatever it is thats going on and think “there’s no way I could have prepared myself for this,” or maybe “I wasn’t expecting that to happen”. And that’s good. Its okay not to be 100% prepared. In fact, I don’t think that’s even possible. Sometimes we just can’t prepare for the things God has for us, or the things that just happen.
So if you soak in anything from this blog I hope its this: YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH.
Please know that deep in your heart.
You will pack the right things you need, or don’t need, and that is okay. You are ready, you will be ready when you launch no matter how many more or less things you have in your pack than your squad mates.
YOU ARE ENOUGH. YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH.
I can rattle on about stories about how the Lord provided things I needed through supporters sending me money to meet fundraising deadlines or to buy simple things like more shampoo or warm clothes, or how I picked up things I needed from the free table, or how my hosts, squad mates, alumni squad leaders, coaches, and mentor blessed me in unexpected ways. I can tell you my stories about how I walked through so much heartbreak and healing with my boyfriend as we struggled hard to have conversations as we cut in and out of wifi in multiple countries. Or when we just didn’t have wifi at all, and had to just trust that we’d be okay in the waiting even in the midst of some hard freaking stuff.
I could tell you about stories of healing sicknesses, and physical wounds, or how I had worries of getting malaria like the large majority of my squad. I could tell you what I needed and didn’t need in those moments, I could tell you the “shoulds”, but they’d only apply to me. There are no “shoulds”, besides maybe listening to God and walking in discernment and love.
My race and everyone else’s will look different than yours.
You have all you need. You are enough. You have done enough.
The Lord is gonna do some crazy awesome stuff in your life this year if you let him. So go knowing in confidence that you are ready, because I promise you, you are.
You are ready. You are enough. You have enough. You have done enough. Trust me, but most importantly trust God. You’ve got this.
