The world race from the perspective of an alumni.
From the sister of a current racer.
From a friend.
Let me introduce myself just in case you don’t know who I am. My name is SarahCatherine Jones. I am currently 20 and studying interior architecture at the University of Tennessee and a young life leader. But none of that matters. The only reason I am here writing words to you today is because two years ago I was part of the World Race Gap Year F Squad (2016-2017). And I happen to be the older sister of Avery Jones, someone you, your child, your friend, or somehow someway know and support. And well as you know she is on the Race now.
And so here I am coming to impart and let you into a view of what might be going on one month in that words can not truly be placed to but that I myself have lived through.
I in no way think all races are the same and in no way can truly help you understand but here is my humble attempt.
These nine months whether you are handling them as a current racer, as a sibling, as a friend, or as a parent is something that is huge. Nine months. Its almost a year, it is a full school year. But that time seems like nothing at all in the grand scheme of what will come to take place and manifest within this time.
You see the race isn’t about going and doing the great commission. It isn’t about finding yourself. It isn’t about helping and or saving others across the world. Yes, all those things play apart. But it is about losing yourself in the Lord. It is about finding him and being thrown into the unknown. It is about dying daily so that one day when people see you they can’t even utter your name, but their spirit will utter “Jesus” first and foremost just by the way that he is carried by who you are.
This trip affects people in waves.
The racers or who ever is on it is affected but anyone they know is affected as well.
And here is how I see it.
Month 1 all the gew starts to come to the surface. When you are serving you are giving parts of yourself. But you cannot give what you do not have and so the Lord starts the process of pruning and growing. He starts the process of allowing you to see who you are without him and suddenly, your hands are open wide holding all of this mess no longer fully knowing who you are or where you are and yet you can’t retreat. You can’t run away or run back. You are asked to simple see the flaws and present the most broken version of yourself and say here I am. See me as I am. Not only to those around you but to the Lord. And thus, begins a process of surrendering and handing over the handfuls of all that you hold on to. That being yourself, others, struggles of sin, expectations, truly it’s a fill in the blank that will continue forever. But these hands that have been holding are asked to release. And release it all.
Follow me through this vision I had a month ago that I am still processing.
When we think about growing or moving forward towards the Lord so often we see it as a destination or a point we need to reach.
You see the Lord standing in this one particular spot and you are like oh I just need to get there. I just need to meet him there. I just need to progress enough where I am standing at that moment or point with him. But when you get there the Lord passes through you. You are standing in that spot you tried to get to for so long and all of a sudden, he is no longer meeting your eyes standing face to face in that spot. He is literally depleting and passing through you but as he does so he takes your hand. And as he is moving backwards he is pulling you with him. And your gaze is moved from the spot you had been working so hard to get to and now its focused on him trying to figure out where he is going. Where he is taking you. And where you might be headed since the spot you had been working towards is no longer the spot you are going towards. Confusion starts to cloud your mind and you start asking all these questions. All this confusion of why and how you aren’t growing but moving back. But here’s the surprise You are in fact growing. You are in fact moving forward. And as this confusion clouds your mind and you don’t yet realize this truth the Lord whispers to you, I am taking you back to Eden.
Our walk with the Lord is constant and it is fluid, different seasons looking like different movements and different paths. But the truth is whether we feel as though we are moving forward or though we feel we are moving backward we are on a constant journey with the Lord of him taking us back to the very begging. He is taking us back to who we were when we were with him. Before our eyes saw this world. Before we were sinful creatures. Before we had wants and dreams. Before we were anything other than being one who praised and worshiped him at his feet. This position, this stance of who we were created to be, who we once were. And though we will never be there again on this side of the world that is what our life is. A constant movement, a constant journey with the Lord of Him moving and taking us and pulling us as much as he can to that point of living with him as we once did in Eden.
And so the hands, the releasing, the stage of life that happens so vividly in the first month of the race truly happens all the time in life for everyone who isn’t on the race as well. There are overlaps. Life is life. Following the Lord is following the Lord. And the journeys all look different but many times underneath what the situations wear the lessons the knowledge the realizations can be the same. A beautiful way to see that the Lord in fact does not leave us alone.
But as you release whatever is in your hands, as you allow yourself to hold the hand of the Lord and move backwards towards Eden realize that you must have one hand open in order to do so. If you hold yourself, your life, situations, any and all things with both of your hands full you will not be able to take our sweet papas’ hand so he can move you to who you were in Eden. And then you will be standing in that spot that you thought you must be in. And when you finally allow your hands to hold nothing you will realize all he has been asking you to do is let go and grab on to him even if the direction is “wrong” to what you believed it was supposed to be.
And as for your other hand…well the Lord will place what he needs you to steward and hold when and how he needs you to. Sometimes it will seem like too much, sometimes it will seem like only parts of certain things. But really why worry about that. Simply let your hands be open and allow his pull to take you back to Eden with him and the rest will come.
And this my dear friends, is what month one of the race is compacted down. What each racer, and maybe you too is going through. But surprise again, this month one, this journey it all continues. It never stops. And though it will start to look different through the different months of the race or just the months of life, I can assure you that it is all the same process so that the Lord may sanctify you and pull you closer into him.
So my prayer who ever you are, is that you would see this. That your spirit would allow the freedom of the Lord to move you. That you would see yourself moving back to who you were in Eden more and more. And that by the end of these nine months whether you are a racer or not that you would be able to say that you have taken hold of the hand of our Papa and allowed him to take you back to the beginning more than you did in years and or months before.
So here is to you.
Here is to realizing and understanding.
Here is to seeing where others are but allowing yourself to see where you are too.
I’m in it with you too. And just as I have been praying over Avery and her journey I will be praying for yours as well. Community. Its what we are made for. And this community, this process, it never ends.
With Love,
SarahCatherine
