When you choose to go on something like this, whether you are leaving to be gone for a lifetime, only coming back home once a year, or you’re leaving on the world race, you give up things. You give up seeing your brother graduate, and your sisters gymnastics meets, and your friends weddings, you miss out on life. It’s not always easy leaving your friends behind, asking them to choose to love you from the other side of the world only able to talk through email, or Skype dates that don’t always happen when we say they will. For us, it’s easier, I believe. We are constantly moving, constantly seeing things they are not, new cultures, foods, lives. They are still at home, still at their jobs, schools, homes. They are living a completely different life than you now.
I asked two of my best friends to tell you what it was like from their point of you, to give future friends of races a heads up, advice, or just some distraction. Lauren, the first story you will read has been my other half for 5 years now, our whole friendship has been long distance, so we are not new to this rodeo. The second story is Emily’s, a sister who I can only explain as a complete work of God that she is in my life to this day.
"Distance is hard. No matter who you are. No matter where you are. It doesn’t come with an instruction manual. And one thing’s for sure, while it has never been our most welcome companion, it’s definitely one that’s stuck around for the entirety of my friendship with Chelsea.
People take for granted the friendships that don’t have to rely on generally silly things like text messages and posts on Facebook to thrive. These things most people don’t think twice about doing are things that are often vital to the health of our friendship. You build habits around these behaviors. Something exciting happens and you reach for your phone. You see a quote or video you want to share and you copy and paste the link.
Always on speed dial. Always just a picture message away.
Until suddenly…. Not.
We got pretty good at this long-distance thing. It thrusts a unique kind of trust over a friendship. A three hour time difference means I’m still asleep when she wakes up and she’s already in bed before I’ve even returned home for the night. Things that were important to her in the morning don’t reach me until I’m eating lunch. If I want to talk at the end of my night, she’s already long traveled to dreamland. You don’t learn to put things on hold; you learn to not let your relationship be a slave to time.
In the nights that followed her departure we lay there, dreading that permanent date. The one where we wouldn’t see each other or talk to each other for almost an entire year. There have been times during this race where I haven’t even talked to Chelsea for close to a whole month straight. Times where we haven’t seen each other’s faces in weeks and weeks and suddenly she’s calling on Skype and I’m staring at this person who looks like they just went through puberty a second time.
Yet…. I find myself still waiting for the day we always dreaded. The day where I pick up the phone and suddenly the person on the other end is someone I can’t communicate with anymore. The day where I hug her in real life and nothing is familiar about it. The day we were always afraid of. Nine months and counting. That day is not coming.
We both felt like our hearts had so much preparing and growing to do in order to make it out of this adventure alive. Months and days and weeks and years we spent trying to figure out why our friendship was cursed by distance from the very start. Why we could never get in a car and drive to see each other when we were sad or even worse… happy. Why we could never rent a movie and order a pizza on a Friday night and sit in our pajamas and laugh together. Why every time we wanted to call or text we had to count back the hours of time difference in our head to make sure it was a good time or not. Why if we wanted to actually see each other’s faces, it cost hours of travel time, hundreds of dollars, and our fragile little hearts.
We thought we had so much preparing to do, but God had already prepared us and we didn’t even know it. And now we finally do.
Every day I’m blessed to know a love that isn’t limited by distance or time. To have a sister that I KNOW is there on the other side, ready to pick up that very same sentence we left off on, even if it’s been incomplete for four weeks and counting. We both have had such a unique advantage in this whole situation.
I’m not saying it has all come easy. And it most certainly hasn’t been one of my favorite things to watch habits we spent years forming slowly fade. But you adjust and you learn. Life comes back to you and its different now, but as always, it goes on. Learning how to love each other when it’s hard is an invaluable experience.
My best advice to anyone in a similar situation is to be a support system. Before anything else. Right now. Five minutes ago. An hour from now. A year from now. Life makes everyone a little sick, and encouragement works better than Tylenol. Praise with your friend, weep with your friend, pray for your friend.
The World Race was something Chelsea had dreamt about for so long that when it finally did happen, I couldn’t be anything other than joyful. And excited. I didn’t spend much energy worrying about how I would cope with it in two months. Mainly because I couldn’t think about anything other than how radical her life was going to be in that same amount of time. That comes from trust. My next advice: TRUST. GOD. You’ll just keep falling if you don’t.
Everyone’s experience with this type of thing is different. Each of us comes with different history and habits. But we all have one thing in common, and He has given us this incredible experience to watch our dear friends’ lives turn upside down and inside out and across the globe and back again. So my decision has been not to highlight how you can best prepare yourself for your friend embarking on the World Race. (That’s beyond you anyway, God’s gonna do that.) Instead, I challenge anyone who is about to step foot in the same waters Chelsea and I did last September to take life by the hand and not be afraid of where it takes you.
Isaiah 41:10
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
"Surreal is how I would describe this race that I'm not on.
Surreal moments of thrill as I explain my sister's adventures to Central America, Asia and Europe. Moments of complete pride as I listen to her growth and complete anguish as I see her tears. There are moments of sitting in a parking lot wondering when she'll be home so I can have her to laugh, cry and talk with. And moments where I look around and simply desire Chelsea to be there.
But, mostly there are moments where I believe God has her entirely where He has always wanted her – serving, loving, breaking and going forth in the grace of the Gospel. Following Jesus is never what we expect it to be, answering his call is never a convenient way out or an easier path to take. There is preparation, sowing, harvesting and effort poured forth when he speaks our name. And I have seen my sister do that.
Even before this race.
I've seen her wait a year to honor her father.
I've seen her utterly dependent when the Lord called me to go.
I've seen her anxious heart in the moments of needed provision.
And her incredible trust in moments of not knowing.
This race has been all I expected and more: blurry Skype dates and cut out phone calls. Unanswered e-mails and long periods of silence. Fervent prayers and incredible miracles. Hope, trust and love.
Some days, I wish Chelsea was a text away. Other days, a drive. I wish she was here for my first year of college. I wish she was the one I ran my first 5K with. I wish I could have taken her to Seattle with me and Hawaii, too. I wish she could have been here for her brother's graduation. And most days, I wish she was right next to me or I next to her surrendering to the Lord together.
But one thing I don't wish is that she wouldn't have gone.
I would do this hundred times over if God asked.
Our friendship is not contingent on circumstances,
and all the glory be to Jesus that we are still standing, fighting for one another.
Acts 20:24 says, "But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God's grace."
