“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
It’s been hard to pay attention to my own heart for the Race. Especially when life is rough, I have the tendency to live in my own little world. I shut myself off from people and their problems. I’ve gotten so bitter since I moved back here. I haven’t worked with the public in my current capacity before, and my opinion of humanity has dropped. Working in the heart of everyone else’s daily life is illuminating and sometimes disappointing. I don’t want evidence of fallen humanity. I want to live in my own little bubble and pretend that everything is fine for everybody. I want to like people. I am reserved with them at first, but I want to believe the best of them. Then they don’t measure up to my expectations, or I find out that they are suffering and I can’t do anything about it. I think it hurts me too much and I thrust it deeply, until I’m calloused like the fingers on my guitar hand. I didn’t used to be like this. If I want to experience God’s heart, which I do, then I must be willing to feel what He feels.
I feel this urge, contrary to where my natural self is predisposed, of helping other people even when I feel like staying in my own bubble. Showing them they are not alone. Hearing their story.
I hope the World Race will help me do this.
I will be surrounded by a small group of very different people in countries without a safety net, sleeping a lot of the time on the ground or in hammocks. It won’t be easy. But I will be helping people, forming relationships. I’ll be learning how to stop being just a consumer, sitting on the outside of the community but never participating. Because if you participate, you run the risk, and maybe the promise, of getting hurt or disappointed. It’s something I just have to work through. This is called kicking my comfort zone to Pluto. It terrifies me. But I’m willing to do it. I know that everything good that happens will not be because of me. I’m weak and self-centered. He is strong and sacrificial. He will work through me to accomplish His purposes. He will provide the funds and the ability.
If you’re reading this, maybe you have been led here for a reason. Maybe He is calling you to support me in this effort, either financially or spiritually. Maybe you have a similar story. Please consider donating to my cause as I venture into Latin America for 11 months. And if you are unable to give financially, please pray. I will need all the prayer support I can get.
