So as many of you know I’m BACK!!!
I love seeing my family, I’m missing my squad family, and I feel like I’m living a dream.
I am still trying to figure out what my new place is and it has been hard. I’m different, home is different, and I don’t want any of it to be the same as I left.
I wanted to share with you all a letter that I wrote a while back; it was meant for family and friends to help with the return. Well I wrote it and wrote it again and never sent it. I felt like I could never could the wording right, it was never ready. But I think it was also because I wasn’t ready…I have been scared of coming back and not living the life that I have grown into over the past 11 months.
I am still working on finding my place but I know that I am heading in the right direction.
So here is the never sent letter…
Dear family and friends
So many emotions, crazy feelings and conversations were spurred based on this realization. Such as,are we seriously almost done with the year? And only 2 weeks to go? Well, this is my reality and I wanted to let you all in on a little bit of where I am at.
First of all, I am sorry. Because nobody could really prepared me for how difficult communication back home would be until I actually left home and then all the sudden months have flew by and I feel like I have missed life at home and it’s so hard, but it’s also hard to be at two places at one time so that’s kind of the reason why I have such a hard time keeping up with people.
Our squad mentor who is kind of the Stateside overseer of our squad spoke a lot of truth and encouragement to our squad recently. For starters, she encouraged us and talked to us about what it looks like to finish well. Since we are officially in the “final leg” of our year it’s easy to become home focused –what’s life after the race going to look? Where am I going to live? What am I going to do? Will I find a job? Should I start apply for jobs? Will people even remember me? Clearly the list goes on. But, instead of focusing on these questions, she encouraged us to finish well. My prayer request is that God gives me the same zeal and joy I had the very first plane ride we took 10 months ago (back in September) to the very first country I went to-Panama. The same excitement I felt in that plane ride, eagerness to share the God’s love, to live radically, to step out in new ways and to be bold. I pray that He gives that to me today, that these last two weeks are the BEST of the entire year.
The other thing our squad mentor encouraged us to do is send an email to those back home and start having conversations about what home life will look like when we get back and where we are each at individually. So, first things first, I miss home so much!! It has been the hardest thing to know this year I have missed weddings, celebrations, parties of all kinds, losses. I have missed friends moving, I have missed countless hours of being with my family. Ok so sorry if this is sounding depressing, but my point in bringing this all up is to say- it is going to be exhausting to come home and have people drill me with thousands of questions and I won’t know how to answer or respond to things all the time and I won’t want to talk about it all the time so please trust that it means so much to me to sit and hear all about where you are at and have been this past year. I want to be a part of things I missed through stories and pictures- so please know that is important to me.
Next, these past 11 months of my life have been some of the unbelievable hardest and unbelievably incredible 11 months of my life. But, it’s also just been life. It’s not a “trip”. It’s been 11 months of traveling, experiencing things, encountering God, meeting incredible people around the world, and falling in love with my squad-but it definitely has not been a trip. A trip is a week or month tops- 11 months is not a trip. Help ease me in by asking be questions more detailed than-how was your trip? Or how was your year? Help ease me in by asking me the hard questions and listening to my stories of brokenness, of fear, of radical love, of radical healing, and more. Help ease me in by laughing with me a lot and letting my cry when I need too. Also one question that will be hard for me to answer a lot os is what am I going to do from here? So the answer is I don’t know.
I can tell you this much- I am struggling with what I feel the Lord is calling me into and with what looks really comfortable. I thought that going on the race was the uncomfortable place and it has been at times but it has been preparing me for what’s next. And right now I am scared to say Yes to him even when I want to. I am not sure what life will look like when I get back home.
Who what where why How when?????
Life has been a beautiful mess lately, but I am so excited to be reunited with the most awesome people. And I can surely say even after traveling the world for a year some of the most amazing people you’ll ever met are all the way back in the good ole USA.
