Wow. Where do iI begin? If you clicked on this blog you’ve probably heard what I have been up to the past couple months, and if you haven’t the URL at the top of this page will tell you, I am going on the world race and this is my story. Well, this particular blog isn’t the whole story, but it is a piece of it. A chapter in a very long book God writes in every day. And the training camp chapter was really hard. It was one of those chapters in books that go on forever and never seem to end. You know how they say in heaven a day is like 1,000 years? Yeah, that was training camp but not in the good way. To set the stage for this chapter, I’d like you to imagine you’re an 18-year-old girl, you’ve never slept outside before in your life (not even as a kid, except once on your 9th birthday party you’d thought it’d be fun to “camp” with your friends outside in your backyard all night but it started raining and you had to sleep in your living room), you’re not a huge fan of bugs, and “outdoorsy” has never been an adjective people have used to describe you. Now explain to me how camping in the woods in Gainesville, GA sounds to you? Because to me, it didn’t sound too great. But I was going off of the wise words from the Onceler in Dr. Suess’ The Lorax, “There I was at the very bottom with nothing but a wagon, a mule, and a completely irrational sense of optimism!” (but instead of a wagon and a mule, I had a tent and a 60L Gregory backpack from REI)
I was really banking on training camp pumping me up for the race because if I’m being honest, I wasn’t too crazy about leaving everything I knew for almost a full year. God had other plans. Within the first 3 days, I had called home crying twice ready for my parents to come to pick me up. Now, I don’t get homesick very often. I never made my parents pick me up from sleepovers when I was little, I never had issues being away from home, but this made me miss home like nothing I have ever experienced before, and it was really intimidating. “How am I supposed to survive for 9 months if I can barely go 3 days?” I was scared. Really freaking scared. I was experiencing spiritual warfare on a different level, and the “I can’t do this” mentality was creeping in. I was ready to give up and run home. And that’s where God stepped in.
The thing I had to learn is that training camp is designed to break you. It is designed to make you fall on your face so when you look up all you see is Jesus. Because you have to realize that you can’t do this, but God can. If we could do everything by ourselves, we wouldn’t need God, and I don’t know about you but I’m 18 years old, I need someone bigger than me to help. At 18 they don’t let you call for an adult to fix your problems, because you are the adult and you have to do it yourself, (worst deal ever, 4 months ago, I still had to ask permission to go to the bathroom, and now I’m expected to make life decisions? Growing up is wild) But that’s where we meet Jesus. Jesus gets to be our adult. And the beautiful thing is when you reach out he reaches back. Always. So reach out, He wants to help you. So yeah I can safely say that I am not ready for the world race. I am not ready to be away from home for 9 months, but Jesus is, and he’s holding my hand through it all. And it took camping in 96-degree heat with 100% humidity to figure that out.
My mom said it to me best, she told me, during one of those crying home phone calls, that I don’t have the grace for 9 months yet. God gives you the grace for today and that’s all we can ask for. In Matthew 6 Jesus says that tomorrow will worry about itself and that each day has enough trouble of its own. The grace for tomorrow will come tomorrow. And it always does. Just take it one day at a time.
