I can sit here and look at a 100 different blogs every single day. I can search #11n11 on Instagram as much as I want. I can look on my squad’s Facebook page every single day and anticipate the time I’m going to get to spend with them for 11 months. I can think about the World Race all day long and I can tell everyone I come in contact with about it. The thing is I can’t go on the World Race until I am content in this moment of time. Until I come to the point of realization that no matter how much I prepare and think about July 7, 2015 (First day of Launch) I am not going to be close to fully comprehending how God is going to rock my world next year.
I have and I always will be a planner. It has been a life lessons of mine that I am slowly learning, that not everything I plan is going to work out in the way I plan it. When I moved I was always thinking about the next moment of what I was going to do in a week or in a month. I could never just sit and be content with having a moment to sit and be still. God asks of us to be still and to know He is God. I have no reason to sit here and constantly think about the situations that I’m going to encounter while on the World Race, because truth is my world race will look nothing like the squad that has just come back. Yes, former World Racers can give me tips and solutions to make things easier, but until I am there I am not going to understand the situations I am going to come upon.
I can admit I have done all of the things listed at the beginning of this blog, but I quickly learned that I was simply falling into old habits of not being able to be content in the current moments. I was starting to let things pass me up, because all I could do was think about all the stuff I have to do between now and July. I’ve had moments here recently where I find myself saying “I can’t wait to be in another country this time next year”, but the thing is there are going to be hard days next year where I’m going to want to say “I can’t wait to be back in America”. What I am going to have to learn and hopefully this is God teaching me this, is that I have to stop saying “I can’t wait” and start saying “I can wait”.
I usually always anticipate the days that I am able to get on a plane and go somewhere, but with this trip I am having mixed feelings. That’s the part of me that is learning to be content. I sit here with different people (family, friends, coworkers) and I simply just think that I won’t get to see these people every day next year. I go to my favorite coffee shops here around Birmingham and I think I may not see these places for a very long time. I am learning to take in each day that comes and be thankful for each moment of it, because I am knowing that 7 months is going to go by so fast. The day that I decided I was going on the World Race is already 5 months behind me. I honest can’t believe time has already went by this fast, but it has and it’s going to feel that way when July gets here. The thing is I don’t want for July to come and for me to feel like I wasted all the months leading up thinking about how the next 11 months are going to be. I am so thankful that God is teaching me to be content in moments of life, because even if it doesn’t feel like it He is truly working in each moment, even the still ones. So yes by July I will be excited to be leaving on the World Race, but I will not look back with regrets of not spending time with the people around me, because I will live out every day to the fullest up until the day of launch. I will learn to be content and give God thanks for every moment, so I will sit here with my christmas lights lit, coffee in hand, and candles burning knowing God is working in this moment while preparing my heart for the next few months leading up to July.
Thanks for reading my blog! If you’d like to donate to my trip click the support me tab on the top of the page or on the left hand side, any support helps. Also, please keep me in your prayers as I am preparing for next July and if you have any questions about my trip please feel free to contact me!
