It’s been 2 months (and a day) since I landed in California and… it’s been a beautiful whirlwind.
I had a lot of hard goodbyes and wonderful hellos at the same time. I know I surprised a lot of people when I simply showed up unannounced! I wasn’t ready to face the end. Except…. it’s not.
Being home after finishing the race has shown me how it was simply the beginning of a new way of living. The race changed me from the inside out. I’m not sure if it’s completely obvious on the outside to those around me but internally everything is different. Being back in the culture I left has shown me how my culture and thoughts changed through the year.
For instance: Church. I use to live for Thursday nights and Sunday mornings; to be in God’s presence and feel my cup being filled again. I needed those services to get through my week (more like my half week because I did not have boundaries). Now, I would rather skip a service if my cup is empty and spend personal time with the Lord. Now, I don’t need a sermon or worship set to fill my cup, it comes from my sacred time with Him. Those things still fill my cup but not in the way I get filled when I get it directly from the source myself. Don’t misunderstand me, I love church and it is important in the life of a believer, but, I have a different mindset approaching it. I don’t go to find God, I go to experience community and pour out what He has been giving me in my alone time with Him. I go to praise my God with other believers for His goodness. I go because I love it, not because I need it to maintain any sense of relationship with Him.
Another: Working for God. I believed that to be a missionary for Christ I had to be partnered with an organization and doing what they had set up. I thought that you had to work within a church or another organization that is Christ based to be considered a worker of His. I discovered that working for Christ is truly a partnership in everything I am doing. The World Race has a saying: Life is Ministry, Ministry is Life. Everything I do is ministry. Everything I do is (well, should be) for Christ. I’ve mentioned to a few people some traveling to other countries I want to do in the near future and I get asked “is it with the same organization or a different one?” It’s with Jesus. Whether I’m a clerk, nanny, teacher, missionary, or traveling solo, the one I work for remains the same. My job is to bring a little more kingdom every day.
My first month home was full of so much beauty. I knew I would see my squad again at Project Search Light in the beginning of January. I spent it with my little brothers and on many coffee dates that brought so much light and life. I got to share many lessons and stories from the race as well as hear about what the Lord has been doing here at home and in their lives. I got to volunteer with Mercy and at my Church. I was thriving.
This second month is a little harder. “Break my heart for what breaks your.” What a dangerous, powerful prayer. We want to have the heart of God but are we truly ready to bear the burden? It’s a prayer I’ve prayed for myself for the 5 years I’ve been a Christian. He’s starting to answer that prayer.
When my team arrived in Lebanon I had a first time experience. I literally walked out of the airport and everything internally turned to chaos. I was heartbroken. I didn’t feel like I belonged. I didn’t feel like I had a place there. I didn’t feel wanted. I was hurt. I was angry. I was horrendously confused. I wanted to isolate and break down crying. After traveling for the past 12 hours my team was ready to go get food and I took a hard step for me and asked for a personal half hour before we left. I sat outside and asked God what was happening within me. I worshipped and I cried. He then showed me that everything I was feeling… was what the people in that country feel. 90% of the Lebanese population are refugees. People who don’t belong and miss their homeland. People who are placed in the spare places. People who aren’t fully welcomed because they have a different nationality. He broke my heart for theirs.
And it’s happening again. I keep seeing more and more clearly the brokenness here, even in the American Church. I see lack of love. I see judgement. I see insecurity. I see fear. I see shackles. I see lack of hope. I see anger. I see the boxes people have placed God into. After this past year my eyes have been opened more.
I want to call people out, I want to point out to lies I see them believing, I want to yell at them that God is bigger than what they see right now. But when I pray about it, I realize they aren’t ready. I wasn’t ready a year ago. If a year ago you called me out on not loving myself I would called you a liar and shown you all the reasons why I believed I did. I look back and I didn’t. I had moved many steps away from hating myself and I thought that was love. This year the Lord truly taught me how to love myself.
Sometimes when I go through my Instagram stories I cry. Because people don’t know there is a different way of living. I hear conversations around me that I don’t belong to and my heart breaks. I can see the roots of the angry words, I can see the roots of the screams at other people, I can see the roots of the distant relationships. There’s jealously, hopelessness, insecurity, a feeling of being powerless. Yet, I see people blame others for their problems. It’s breaking my heart.
I don’t fully know why I’m sharing this but it’s on my heart tonight. When you see brokenness, there’s a root. When you see fear, I promise there’s hope. We are all growing, we are all being sanctified. I can’t fix everyone’s problems as much as I wish I could. I’m still working on myself and what the Lord keeps revealing to me about my own journey. I realize that my job with these opened eyes is to pray. Pray, pray, pray for them and keep my ears on alert for when God says they are ready to hear something hard.
