Wow, it’s been awhile.
With only a few good reasons, I must admit.
I apologize.
So the upcoming days will (hopefully) be filled with several updates.
Enjoy.
There is this band named “Needtobreathe,” and this band just so happened to put out a new album called “The Reckoning” right before I left for the race. Since first listening to the album I have always said they wrote the cd for me. Somehow they managed to know my life without even knowing me, AND they seemed to write about steps in my journey on the race before I had even stepped foot on the plane to Guatemala. Crazy.
I was listening to the album on the plane from North Carolina to Los Angeles, when I heard the first two lines of the song “The Reckoning:”
Goin’ to California
Suitcase in my hand
Now, let’s be real, I didn’t have a suitcase, more like a larger than life backpack. However, this was me, on a plane to California with my entire life for a year in a bag.
But, I believe this song was written about leaving a life of complacency behind and living a life full of the Lord; a life that isn’t always easy, a life that will be broken, but a life with purpose. I’m sure Needtobreathe will forgive me if that wasn’t their orignal purpose for the song, but that is the purpose for it in my life.
Check these lyrics out:
The nature of the broken
Spirit of the chosen
We stand alone
A journey through the purpose
The weight of when it’s worthless
The roads don’t show
In the middle of our reckoning time
Wow. Way to go Needtobreathe.
So what has changed with the way I view these lyrics since being on the race? Well, for starters I had no idea what the “weight of when it’s worthless” or “the nature of the broken” would feel like on the race. (That will have to be explained in another blog entirely.) Nor did I really know what my purpose was, why the Lord had chosen me for this, or where future roads were leading me.
I can say that now I see the world as bigger than ever before. Vietnam is no longer just a country where some war took place; I have walked the woods where the bombs were dropped, I have gotten to know the kind people who fill Vietnam with smiles and laughs. Everyday I look at my life and all I have seen in the last 6 months, and I am so grateful for each opportunity.
I am experiencing life outside the boundaries of the east coast of the United States. I had no idea all this existed. I had no idea what opportunities were out there for me to experience. The Lord has opened my eyes to a world bigger than anything I could have imagined. It seems almost silly to say that I didn’t realize life outside of North Carolina could exist, but what I really mean to say is, I had no idea it could exist for ME.
-Caitlyn
