There are a few articles of clothing I have carried with me throughout the duration of the race that I really didn’t want to part with once I got home.
My amazing mother has tried washing the odor out more than once.
Unfortunately, the funk just won’t go away.
The saddest part is I don’t even smell anything as she puts her nose to the armpit of the shirt exclaiming, “this must be what Africa smells like.”
The truth is the stains will never leave. The smells will never disappear.
Just like my clothes, it is embedded on me… on the inside of me. These things are tattooed on my heart and in my mind… it will never leave me.
These blemishes have shaped who I have become. These imperfections are my destiny.
I can try to ignore it, wash it out, or discard it… but that will not make it disappear.
What I experienced this year was real. As much of a dream as it now feels like, it did in fact happen.
I saw things.
I heard things.
I felt things.
I experienced things.
(and I definitely smelt things!)
And every memory echoes in my heart as God responds,
“What are you going to do?”
I have to embrace the funk.
Just like the love-hate relationship I have with my favorite shirt that smells like an odor I am unable to describe, so is this feeling I have for the messy life God is asking me to live.
I would be a fool to pass this life up
and, honestly,
I can’t ignore what is now a part of me.
The truth is, I’m just a nomad.
A term my mom now likes to call me. Doesn’t seem very appealing to most, but I’m realizing something:
being messy… is the only way to live.
