A year ago, I was at launch about to head out to experience the greatest adventure of my life.
I’ve already been home for a month and a half since this adventure.
Being home hasn’t been easy, but it’s been a very needed transition. For me, life on the race was ‘easier’ because no matter what situations I’d be in, I had people that understood the greater meaning behind all of the things that happen in this world. I didn’t just have community (like I did at home), but I LIVED with my community. We had all of our meals together and even when we would lay our heads down at night, my fellow sisters and brothers where next to me. And to be honest I felt like that’s really all I needed/wanted, to live life with like minded people. Like my friend Taylor would say, our conversations would always be brought back to Christ. And what better way to strengthen my faith than to surround myself with those who understand? Well, the answer is kinda a combo of that we well as the opposite.
Since being home, I have seen and felt the Lord work more than I ever have, through people that don’t even know him and through circumstances that that would be otherwise seen as ‘being lucky’. The Lord has been my rock, perhaps more now than ever in my life. I have been blessed with a beautiful community here at home. I’ve had so many people come up to me and just ask me how I’m doing. Community is crucial. However when you live with community, you can all tend to kinda blend together and that’s why the race is only 11 months, long enough to establish a lifestyle of serving him in all that we do yet not too long to where you no longer recognize your old lifestyle. I think it’s important to revisit who we were as well as perhaps who we still are and didn’t realize it. We can be made new in him, but that doesn’t mean we don’t give any credit to what we experienced when we were in the trenches because he was there too. He has always been here and always will be, fighting for us even when we don’t fight for ourselves.
Overall, staying connected with people who are spiritual family is crucial, but learning how to take the training wheels off, being back in the normal daily life but not OF it, is also crucial for strengthening my faith. Like I said it’s been hard, even after being prepared with many different talks the last week of the race, but it’s been necessary for my walk with the Lord. Like my devotion told me this morning (well, the Lord really), “…it is the fierce winds that cause the mighty cedars on the mountainside to sink their roots more deeply into the soil. Our spiritual conflicts are among are among our most wonderful blessings, and the Adversary is used to train us for his own ultimate defeat….And in truth, meeting temptation victoriously doubles our spiritual strength and weaponry.”
“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37
