I’ve often wondered what it must be like for an infant the moment they take their first breath in the real world. For nine months, they are safely nestled away in their mother’s womb from the outside world. How odd it must be to hear sounds that were once muffled? Or smell the scent of their father as they are handed off?
This was very much how I felt when I began the World Race. I’d spent twenty two years nestled comfortably in the womb of the world I lived in. The moment I stepped foot on the field, my eyes were truly opened to the world around me. I experienced the feeling of seeing life for the first time through new eyes. I heard languages that were unknown and loved people from different cultures. I felt heartache for the first time and embraced the unknown.
Now that I’m home, that same feeling has returned. But this time in such a different way. I’m back in a place that is so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. I see my freshly painted nails and clean hands. I remember these were the same hands that were once wrapped around a coffee mug as I sat with my Granny on a bench in Africa. The now clean feet that hit the hardwood floors everyday were once covered in Jamaican dirt. The clothes that I wear are no longer urine stained from the little boy in Haiti, who I couldn’t refuse to hold. I smell the scent of food cooking in my kitchen, all the while knowing that a completely different scent is coming from my Aunt Lou’s house in Nicaragua. I’ve felt the sting of seeing a child that looked like Lucky from Cambodia and felt the hurt that followed from knowing that I may never hold her again. My hands have to re-familiarize themselves to soft skin after a year of rough and diseased baby skin. I try to force tears out of eyes that have become so numb to sickness, starvation, and suffering that surrounded us each day.
I’m home but I’m not.
I look in the mirror and the girl that was once there is unrecognizable. I came back to the same world that I grew up in but as a completely different person. Yes, there will be days where I want to sit and talk about my year. There will also be days where I won’t even want to discuss me. There will be moments where I will tell you all about my fun adventures of shark diving and bungee jumping. But there will be other days where I will open up and invite you into some of the hardest moments I’ve ever encountered. If I tear up while talking about hearing God’s voice for the first time, don’t worry, I’m right back on that dusty ground in Swaziland, looking at the mountains and feeling the love of my Father. If I get overwhelmed over the menus in restaurants, it’s because I’m right back in Haiti, holding the legs of a woman who was dying of hunger.
There will be moments that you may never understand about me. I’ve experienced more joy than my heart could handle and more pain than I want to admit. I walk a little taller because I no longer carry around the weight of my false self. I’ve truly experienced the transformation of new life. I’ve been hard pressed on every side but never broken. I’ve fallen completely in love with Jesus and I can never go back to a life that is void of intimacy.
Yes, I went on the World Race but I don’t want to be known as the World Racer Brittany.
I’m a child who is still learning how to walk, talk, and adventure in this new identity that God has given me.
