For more than a month now I’ve been trying to find the words. And this blog is an effort to put into words what finishing the Race looks like.
There are at least five partially completed drafts saved on my computer written at the one month, two week, one week, and three day countdowns. And yet here I am, more than two weeks stateside, still trying to find the words. As of right now, the words on this page are probably just another draft for the archives. But then I guess if you’re reading them, I must have clicked “publish”.
I generally put a lot of effort into the things I write. I always have. I find that I’m usually able to articulate myself better with the written word than with the spoken word. Not having my words neatly arranged, where I can backspace, copy and paste, and grammar check them, stresses me out. (Gosh, even now as I’m typing this…all the backspacing)
Right now though, no matter how many times I try, no matter how many times I rearrange and backspace and copy and paste, I am discovering that the things I’m feeling in my mind, heart, and soul are just too messy for words. And I hate that. Because I hate messes. But what the Lord is revealing to me through this futile effort to write a stupid blog is that the mess is okay.
The mess is okay.
It’s okay that I don’t have the words right now to describe what the past nine months of my life looked like. It’s okay that I may never have the words because things that are of the Lord are too lofty for words. And the happenings of the past nine months were very much of the Lord. He was within and around, above and below, behind and before, every second of my Race. So if you ask me how my “trip” was, I’ll tell you it was good. But “good” is good enough because all that is good ultimately comes from God and points to Christ.
It’s okay that my “home” just doesn’t feel like home anymore. And it’s okay that it may never feel like home again. Because I’ve learned to find a true home, where there is an abundance of comfort and rest and freedom, in the arms of Abba. And because parts of myself now live on the floor of an orphanage in the Philippines, on top of a mountain in Swaziland, within the hearts of some of my squad mates, and around David and Damaris’ kitchen table, my home will never again fit neatly under one roof.
It’s okay that I don’t know what’s next. It’s okay that I don’t have my next big life decision mapped out. (Granted it sucks sometimes, but its okay) As for today, I’m following Jesus. And Jesus, I’ve learned, is a lot of fun so I trust that as I continue to chase after him, he will unveil another adventure. But for now, I’m resting and navigating this mess alongside an all-knowing Guide which is the greatest adventure in and of itself.
So try with all our might and wish all we want, our lives will never be neat. They’ll always be messy because we are messy people. For thousands of years we tried to clean up the mess we created until a gracious, loving, and merciful God sent his son to do what we couldn’t and will never be able to do. We don’t have backspace, spell check, or copy and paste in this life. Only Jesus. Only ever Jesus.
I can’t neatly close the last chapter of my life. It can’t be wrapped up in a blog or in a conversation over coffee. In the past nine months my world has been rocked. Flipped upside down and shaken to the core. I am not the same person I was when I left for the Race and I’m still trying to figure out what just happened. But the Lord is teaching me that I can’t figure this out by my own power because it wasn’t my own power that sustained through the last year. It was Jesus. And so I’m finding Jesus in this mess and clinging ever so tightly to the bright hope that life with him offers.
And that’s all we really can do.
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Thanks for following my adventures with Jesus around the world this year. My prayer is that the things I shared only ever brought glory to the Lord and never unto myself. Thanks for your prayers and support throughout it all. Couldn’t have done it without you.
Here is the link to my final re-cap video! Watch and enjoy 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDnm64j91xA
