My Birthday is coming up on April 16th, so I’m dedicating this post to celebrating the victories that have happened in the past year while also speculating a little bit about what I’d like 23 to look like alongside the Lord. So without further adieu:
The Year of Twenty-Two Consisted Of:
-Graduating from college with my Bachelors Degree in Literature and English
-Meeting financial deadlines for the World Race that I never believed I’d hit
-Some pretty amazing sunrises and sunsets across the world
-Tears and goodbyes to various people and places I care very deeply about
-Traveling around the entire globe in one direction – almost (on April 29th, when we hit Guatemalan Soil, this will be true!)
-Going to Africa and Asia for the first time (and all the adventures and people who have made these places what they are – literally so much)
-Growth on Growth I can’t even sum up in words
Twenty-Two is going to have a beautiful place in my heart. The reason I’m writing this down to share is because I believe it should be a year to celebrate and look back on with the people who I spent it with (that’s you, you subscribers and random readers!). Why? Not because I circumnavigated the globe and not because I have been to all these places, but because it was the year I stepped into “yes” with the Lord and “yes” to allowing others to walk alongside me, letting them step into the “something bigger” that we all long to be a part of.
A lot of people probably look at me and think I sound brave and courageous to be doing the things I have been doing for the past year in my life – and I definitely am – but I don’t feel it a lot of days when I am on the Race. As the Race has progressed, my idea of being brave and courageous has morphed and changed.
Maybe being brave today looks like writing something hard down and sharing it with someone, but tomorrow it could look like closing the door to my room and speaking truth I desperately want to believe in my heart over myself privately – no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. Being brave today could look like speaking into a friend on the squad or a team mate who needs to hear encouragement, and being brave tomorrow could look like asking a hard question and just listening to the answer without input – if that’s what the Lord wants. Being brave on the Race – a lot of the time – looks like speaking up when feedback needs to be given, both in the moment and in regular feedback time when we sit together as a team at the end of the day.
For me, being brave looks a lot like taking a leap of faith and doing it even when there is no sure outcome… Coming on the Race was my leap of faith nearly a year and a half ago – and it has made the world start looking technicolor in a way I wasn’t expecting. The World Race was a tool God used in my life to basically take the box I had placed Him inside and obliterate it into a million tiny pieces. As I have been on the Race, I have been living in the midst of a free-fall I still know no outcome to.
Let me say this, though… The free-fall doesn’t stop once the Race is over. The free-fall never stops.
The elephant in my heart of “what’s next” hangs in the air more than I care to admit and I really hate admitting that I still have zero plan. God tends to show up at the very last minute for me, though, so it’s no surprise that He would have me wait on something as important as what may be next. But being brave right now might mean that I have to free-fall beautifully, in-the-moment-and-here, present. It may mean that I have to place my trust in the midst of no answers, and pray that others will gladly live with me in the midst of the “I don’t know.”
Being 22 and Brave meant saying “yes,” but I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want this year ahead in my life to look like with the Lord. The obvious answers are to live in communion and intimacy with Him like I’ve learned to do this past year, going deeper, keeping in community that knows me as I am now and will continue building me up, and solidifying my identity in Truth before the Race inevitably ends (and even after that, too, because I believe it’s an ongoing process)…
The out-there answer would be to truly live in that odd free-fall feeling that comes with living in intimacy with the Lord and knowing my True Identity. To live inside the bravery it takes to say “yes” and “no,” to live inside the faith and bravery it takes to continue living on the road less traveled by. To know in my heart that God has that elephant wrapped in His arms and it will be revealed to me in His due time.
I want to hold on during my 23rd year while continuing to still be brave and courageous when I don’t feel it. I want to hold on to Him when my “I don’t know’s” seem to be too much and not enough. I don’t want to give up on the Lord when He feels distant – so I won’t. I don’t want to give up on myself when I’m at the end of my own rope – because He hasn’t stopped holding onto me and He is so Sure of me. I want to live out my faith by continuing to follow the narrow path and most importantly… I want to be still, knowing that He will complete and continue the work He started in me, because He is faithful until the very end.
