“We just traveled around the world… Welp, that was fun!”
This is what my friend Kelli said as we sat there in our hotel room in LA, fresh off the 14 hour flight from the Philippines. In shock, dazed, and excited all at the same time, we laughed quite loudly at that comment as the reality of that comment sank in like a heavy cloud.
It is over.
The World Race is over.
We literally just traveled all over the world, and now we are back in America – eleven months later. Who does that? We did.
And it was fun. It was more than fun – it was real life.
I feel like for the first time I finally lived life the way He planned for me; away from the constant distractions, actually allowing Him the space to bless me. I learned to stop compartmentalizing the different areas of my life into sections like different books on a shelf that never relate to each other. Faith in a living God is a rushing river that brings greater excitement to my adventures, hope to my desperate situations, deeper love to my relationships, and intricate meanings to the simplest of things.
Of course my experience wasn’t all gravy – that would just be boring.
The World Race was also one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. The sights of desperate poverty, starvation, abandoned babies by a dumpster, people literally living in trash day in and day out, as well as many other unfathomable sights, brought me to the reality of the things in this world that are simply “not okay”.
Then there were the benefits from living in a community that was constantly striving to help you become more like Jesus. Encouragement is not overrated.
And constructive encouragement, the refinement… well, frankly, sometimes that growth was about as fun as falling on your butt at the Great Wall of China (oh wait, I did that). There were times when I wanted to run away, scream, cry, kick something and laugh all at the same time. But those growing pains are some that I wouldn’t trade for anything and I am genuinely thankful for each one.
Essentially, I learned in a very authentic way, that this life is not about me, and that makes me very happy.
For all of these reasons and more, I’ve decided to keep the pace going.
Read my next blog coming this week if you are curious as to where life has led me #after11n11.
