I pressed into 11 months and rejoiced in shedding fear, pounds of it falling off as situations and circumstances burned away the fear and doubt that likes to stick to me. I found and built confidence and assurance in the Lord’s faithfulness and provision as He continuously delivered in ministry and in my own heart.
There’s a place God hasn’t delivered what I want. He’s delivered but not how I want. He’s spoken often about it but not ever given a definite answer. In this place, I admit, being home now, the fear and doubt start slipping back on me in the growing cracks in my shield.
The future.
It’s always consumed me in anxiety and taken me on journeys in my mind that dump me off at the same starting point but much more exhausted and frustrated than at the beginning. I can run in circles in my mind about it getting nowhere and then blaming the Lord about it. Why can’t you just tell me, Jesus?
I know my purpose is Jesus. Simply that and all the complexities that come from that purpose – stepping out in faith to travel for 11 months, sharing him with others who don’t know Him, loving people even when it hurts or feels difficult. The totality of my life is navigated from that one essential coordinate.
But I expected to know more this past year.
I remember saying my word before leaving on the Race was ‘purpose’. After heartbreaking years of my plan shattering, I prayed for that plan and those years to be redeemed. It felt and seemed like God kept impressing on me in moments that it would be.
I’d hold onto those promises even though He had to remind me constantly because I’d happen to forget in anxiousness and worry. Surely, He’ll take me to a place that I see as worth every heartache and pain. Something that I couldn’t imagine life without and be revealed a passion I never considered before or reconfirm one that I can stand on in confidence.
I believed that. I believe it. I want to believe it. I, truthfully, can clearly be fickle about it.
Me trying to find balance on the Power Pole at Lasting Impressions camp in Zim.
It can become difficult holding to the promise. Sometimes I let go of it thinking I heard wrong when at the end of the year, my friends and teammates serving right alongside me are given a direction and I’m not. Or they are spoken over by others things about their future and I’m not. I met that lady first, why do they get to be told spiritual, encouraging things and not me? In my selfishness, I ask the Lord “out of us all, Jesus, you don’t want to tell me yet? I’m sitting right next to so-and-so at the dinner table and they have an inkling or know for sure what’s next but I still don’t at all. I thought you said you’d redeem.’
Honestly, there’s fear in me about not being shown the next step and being stuck again. At 25-years-old especially, I want a step in a direction instead of having a job that takes me nowhere. I refuse to accept any jobs right now just to have one. But more than not being shown the next step I fear a direction I may not be able to find the strength to step confidently into.
At SkyTrek Zipline in Costa Rica about to step off backwards to free fall to end.
I fear making a wrong move. I fear regret and the ‘what ifs’ that could plague me for the rest of my life. I fear my biology degree being a waste. I fear choosing others expectations spoken or implied over God’s. I fear my direction won’t be towards a medical career again and I’ll wonder if I made a mistake until I’m 100-years-old, if I make it that far. Then, I fear it will be medical and still questioning if it was a mistake until I’m 100. If it didn’t come together the first time in PA school, why would it now?
What do I do with all that? I don’t know. All I know is rushing to Jesus for some sense of peace. Like a child at a social gathering running back to their parent as home base. Good, you’re still here. I need you to stay.
Being home, in this fear, I’ve hid. I don’t want to make too many commitments because I need to figure life out or so I tell myself. I need space I say. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t but I’m certainly not going to make myself busy. But everyone is asking about what’s next and all I have to tell them is resting and prayer for at least a month, maybe more. My poor parents, I know.
It reminds me of the handful of ledges I hurled myself off of this past year in full trust that the rope would catch and I wouldn’t crash into the Zambezi River or break on the rocks at camp. At Victoria Falls, I remember all the sensations. They strapped gear onto us and hooked us to the rope, I was with my teammate Nettie who is fearless. We inched little by little to the ledge that scooped down a stomach-dropping 400 feet to the roaring waters and sharp rocks.
The funny thing is, I felt the spark of fear and felt my tummy bottom out but there was also a piercing excitement. I was brave. I stepped off the ledge into air without hesitation. In the free fall, my insides twisted, my senses were screaming, I was yelling myself hoarse, but then the rope caught. We started swinging back and forth above the river in the canyon and I caught my breath, smiled, and laughed in astonishment. What a rush. I couldn’t help but put my arms out like I was flying even though it was breaking the rules. The rush was beyond the fear.
If I can put my full trust in my teammate Chelsea who held a rope around a tree plus her own body and then asked me to jump and I did or if I am able to not doubt strangers I don’t even know in Zimbabwe or Costa Rica, surely I can believe that the God who has never failed me, formed me, and loves me beyond measure will make sure the rope catches in my life. That there is a direction, there is a choice, and there is a future unimaginable ahead.
Whether it was in my plan or not, I should trust that it’s more beautiful than my own charted path. My plan was blown to bits in 2015. I have to continue to press into staring forward at a white-washed, blank future even in moments I want the dream and plan back untampered with.
There’s abundant life beyond the fear.
At least that’s what author Shauna Niequist said on page 128 of her book ‘Cold Tangerines’.
Maybe it won’t be as clean and tidy as I hope it will be. Maybe Jesus won’t answer me with one clear ‘this is it’. Maybe I’m just supposed to choose. Choose counseling, choose teaching, choose nursing, choose trying PA school again (that’s terrifying), choose more international missions, choose. I just don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. That’s the whole darn frustrating point my human mind still doesn’t want to accept at times. And I sometimes wonder why I still sound like a college student making choices.
But gosh, if there’s anything I always come back to in my racing thought tirades or embarrassment and discomfort that I don’t know where I’m going, it’s that the rope will catch eventually. Or even I’ll move my foot to step off. If I’ve learned anything at 25, I’ll have to keep waiting for the rope to catch or stepping off over and over in life. At least, I will in a full life not obstructed by fear.
As much as it may require to fight off doubts, God doesn’t see me as any less to Him. He’ll lead me and is leading me now. He is keeping His promises whether I realize it or not. I may want to tug back the map into my hands but He is a trustworthy guide. He knows where to find the most stunning mountains, where the best view below is, and where the most beautiful spot to watch the sun sink below the horizon is. My direction doesn’t compare to one who is all-knowing or understands me more than I can possibly understand myself.
This is my last blog post on the World Race platform! To those of you who followed my blogs and journey, thank you. Thank you for reading, for your prayers, and encouragement. From the deepest place of my heart, I am grateful for those of you who also supported me financially and helped this journey be possible. It’s harder to jump without you all right beside me. Love you, friends. 🙂
