At this point there was such unrest in my mind. Why was still in Europe? What was the point of all of this? Why couldn’t I just go home? But God didn’t leave me without an answer, and there wasn’t a moment that he left me without assurance that He was at work somehow.
The answers to some of these questions became so clear so quickly that I never had to stop to search for them. The first and most obvious answer was that God had asked me to. Even if there seemed to be no purpose or no direction, what was important was that God asked and I obeyed. But there was a purpose. There’s something that happens when you’re alone and helpless in an unfamiliar place. It opens you up to new depths of intimacy with the Father and challenges everything you think you know about God, the world and yourself. All the same things He had been teaching me on the race were revisited and amplified.
What is it like to be unnoticed and ignored? I found out through hours of being passed by every car on the road as though I wasn’t even there. What does it really mean to be hospitable to a complete stranger? I found that out from the kindhearted folks who picked me up and at times blessed me with food and water. How do you discover your true identity? You find out by living, and you find out best by living in chaos and in situations where you don’t get to stop and think, you simply have to act and trust in God’s guidance and goodness.
This was a time of real intimacy with the Lord, and he taught me so much about the illusion of control that I have, how to hear His voice, what it means to have compassion, and how to fully depend on Him. He taught me about the faith it takes to live without reflection, when you have to simply keep moving and trust that He will guide you and have grace for whatever wrong decisions you might make.
Seeing the race come to an end was difficult for me. There are times when it’s still hard to believe that it’s over. So I thank God that He called me to do this and that He used it in such a way as to recap all of the lessons I have learned in the last year. But now that both of those seasons are finished I can look forward with confidence to what He has still ahead of me.
