I just recently returned home from my World Race almost three weeks ago. A few nights ago I decided to type up a lot of the different things I was feeling as I’ve returned home, and so, this blog ended up being a result, even though it began as more of a journal entry to clear my mind. I believe it was truly a gift to me from the Lord, and I’d love to share it with you!
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Today I am reminded that there’s so much more to life than we’ve been told.
We just watched this movie called, “Lion.” It’s about a boy who gets lost and taken 900 miles from his home in India. It’s so dark and dangerous there. It brought me back to so many memories of the Race, of the things that broke my heart.
I’ve come to find out the world isn’t all that I made it out to be. It isn’t a happy place of light, it’s actually a place where there’s a lot of pain and darkness and hurt. It’s heartbreak and sickness and distrust and there’s a lot to fear. Here I am, sitting in my bedroom in California, in America. I feel as though I’m in the safest place in the world.
But yet, it seems in this safety the Lord isn’t quite as near, simply because I don’t have to cling to the light as much in a place of comfort and no lack. It seems as though living life outside of your comfort zone is the true way of living.
My spirit broke on the world Race. I reached a point of hopelessness and despair as I looked at the world around me.
When you leave for the Race, they tell you you’ll change the world. Over and over again people told me. But when I looked up and began to see the world, it overwhelmed me. Poverty cannot all be fixed. I cannot end sex trafficking. I cannot give every orphan a home. I cannot love everyone that needs to be loved. Even beginning to try seemed unfathomable.
During my sixth and seventh month of my Race, I reached this point of heartbreak and sadness and despair at these things that I questioned why I ever even decided to go on the Race. I was angry with the Lord… I was angry with the fact that it felt like nothing could or would ever change. I wondered if I should be in Guatemala, in Africa, in Asia. I wondered if I should’ve ever come.
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Right now I’m sitting in my bedroom. I’m about to sleep alone for the first time since I’ve gotten home. My sisters are across the hall from me; my parents are upstairs. I haven’t slept alone in a room for nine months though. I’ve slept with five or six friends jam packed in some rooms, spread out in tents in others. I’ve avoided sleeping here the last two weeks because to wake up and see that there are no friends surrounding me and to wake up and actually face the fact that the World Race is over isn’t really something I’m interested in. I don’t want to face it. I don’t want to say goodbye to it. I don’t know how to say goodbye to it.
The World Race started with a lot of goodbyes to friends and to my family. Nine months felt as though it were an eternity back then.
And then, it ended with a lot of goodbyes.
I remember sitting on the bench I pulled out from the outdoor shed in Chichicastenango, and during the month of June waves of grief hit me, so I’d go out and sit there, and watch the trees dance in the wind, and the mountains under the clouds. I’d soak up the sun, and gaze at it with my sunglasses on because of the brightness. Sometimes the clouds were out and I’d bundle up and try to make the best of it. And often times, I would sit out there to cry. Waves of grief would hit me when I thought about saying goodbye to this season of my life, to the incredible friends that surround me at every moment.
Life on the Race was so different than anything I’ve ever experienced. It took life itself and flipped it on its head. It flipped everything on its head.
I lived out of a backpack. I brought five shirts, two skirts, two shorts, and a pair of jeans; some tennis shoes and chacos. I had a tent, a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad, a hammock. A chair, some cards, a book, my Bible, a few journals. One big pack, and one day pack, and one ukulele. It’s all I had, but it was really all I needed. When I had too much, I dropped things. I found that my World Race closet was actually pretty large compared to what many others had, let alone what I had at home.
Life was simpler. What I wore mattered less, what I looked like mattered less, what I had mattered less, what I ate mattered less. We didn’t wear clothes or eat food for luxury, we ate for survival, how most of the world does. It’s hard to come home to a room full of stuff I forgot I even had, but it’s also easy to remember comfort and live in it.
Life was more restful on the Race. It wasn’t go, go, go. When we didn’t have ministry, we didn’t have a massive to-do list. We just had each other and a few others that spoke our language, or understood our culture. There was plenty of time for things, and if you didn’t get it done, you’d wait for the next day, but it was never something to worry about. There would always be time for it another time. Other cultures move so much slower, rest so much more. Life isn’t about packing everything in that you possible can, it’s about slowing down and enjoying the people and beauty around you. Every single country we went to had their own country time (i.e: Malawian time) to arrive to things. All of them were late. But others weren’t ever upset at lateness, but simply happy to have you there.
Community was 24/7 on the Race. I’m talking buddy rule and everything. Even if it was just to the bathroom. I lived with some of my teammates for six whole months. They weren’t people I chose to live with, they were chosen for me. It was difficult at times to press in, to choose to love them. That’s a long time to live every hour of every day with someone I never chose, who never chose me either. But oh, to press in and to choose the person sitting across from me at the dinner table was so beautiful. It was so difficult and hard and made me grit my teeth, but I never regretted it. When I thought about not putting up with the things that frustrated me because they wouldn’t be in my every day life any more soon, it made me tear up and made me want to press in even more. I miss them. I miss every single one of them so deeply. It’s so hard to love hard and say goodbye and know that that person sitting across from you at the dinner table every single night for six months is a person who isn’t likely to ever be in your every day life again.
There were no agendas on the Race. Our agendas were spending time with the Lord and each other. If i wanted to spend five hours with the Lord some mornings, I could. I did. Often, actually. I was in a community that also could spend five hours with the Lord sometimes, and they understood it. They pushed me and we asked hard questions and even read the Bible in a whole month. To go from that to a community that looks so different these six weeks of summer is strange sometimes. But oh, how deeply I love my family. The reunions getting back were so sweet, they still are so sweet. Every day is so beautiful because I get to wake up and see their faces.
And i’ll have to say goodbye to them again soon, too. I’ll see them on the holidays and every single reunion will be so so sweet. But it’s hard to know I won’t get to see their faces every day. And then, I’ll start all over again. All over again to opening myself to people, to letting them love the deep parts I don’t want to let them into, the tears I try to hide. I’ll start all over again to the get to know you games, like “how many siblings do you have? and where are you from?” I’ll live with a new five girls and in a new place.Life will be very different there too. It will be incredible and beautiful and saying goodbye to that someday will break my heart again, so I can’t dread it.
But oh, the pain of loving is so real, so raw, so vulnerable, so heartbreaking and heart wrenching. Goodbyes are so hard and seasons change so much throughout all of life. Life keeps moving on whether I run with it or watch it – it’s just going to roll by faster. Sometimes the pace scares me. It’s as if I don’t know what to do with it all, with time. I try to make sense of the past only to try and not create expectations for the future, all while trying to stay present. It’s a strange battle to fight, and not one that I can win the way I’d like to.
And yet there’s so much more to life than we’ve been told. There’s so much collateral beauty at stake. To love is to feel; to feel is to feel pain. To love people we must feel their pain and let them into ours. There is so much beauty to the brokenness.
I’ve been so overwhelmed by it all. Coming back to the States, the gratefulness I feel for this beautiful season and also the pain-staking goodbye of the fact that I will never have this season back again. I’ve been so overwhelmed by my emotions but also by not knowing what to feel. I’ve bounced between wondering what I should feel and wanting to not feel at all, wanting to block out the pain but also the beauty that is there in it.
There is so much more to life than we’ve been told. I’m told “Life is good,” I’m told “Life is hard, or Life is hard work.” I’m told that if I dare to hope I’ll be let down. I’m told to breathe and to pursue happiness. I’m told to live and to love. I’m told “YOLO.” I’m told many things. Many things that contradict each other, many things that lead me to ask, “What is truth?” I dance between answers, wondering which is right and wrong, what the truest of truths is. I wonder if God watches me dance or if He dances with me. I wonder a lot of things.
I hope to continue to walk into a place of never losing wonder, actually. I feel like it’s when we lose our wonder that we become numb to beauty, to pain, to love, and to feeling anything at all. I am afraid of becoming numb, afraid of losing wonder. I don’t want to miss what the Lord is laying right in front of me.
I used to say and pray and mess with the idea of my heart breaking for what the Lord’s heart breaks for. I didn’t really know what I was saying though. I can’t imagine the heartbreak He feels because He has loved every single imperfect soul that has ever lived. I can’t imagine the things humanity has done to rip His heart out. I can’t even begin to imagine the things I’ve said or done that have ripped His heart out, and I am only one human. There’s nine billion others on the planet right now, let alone all of the ones that have passed and all of the ones to come.
The Lord gave me just a fracture of His heartbreak, a sliver. One hair of all of the ones on my head. Probably even less than that.
And this is the point that I reached on my World Race, on Months Six and Seven, this place of that sliver of heart break and pain that the Lord feels.
But now, I pray that I will continue to feel His heart break, because that is when I feel His heart. That is when my compassion grows to become more like Jesus. That is when I am able to see as He sees.
You see, lately, I’ve been believing the lie that that was it. That the World Race was this huge, massive growth in my life and taught me all of these lessons in such a short period of time. I’ve been believing that I’ll never be able to learn so many things in such a short period of time again, unless given the same circumstances. I’ve been believing this is a pinnacle point of my life, that it is downhill from here. I’ve been believing that afterwards my life doesn’t amount to much and that I’m not very useful in the sight of the Lord. I’ve been believing that it is finished, that I’m supposed to go back to the old me almost. That I’m supposed to go back to not hoping, to being overwhelmed, to being numb, to fear.
But that is simply not truth. It is not truth. It’s not. It’s simply not.
That is not who the Lord is. That is not who He is. It’s not.
And that’s not who He’s called me to be. That’s not who He created me to be. That’s not what He told me. That’s not what He promised me.
He’s promised me hope, and a future.
He’s promised me He will always be with me, even to the end of the age.
He’s promised me eternal hope.
He’s promised me He will be my strength.
He’s promised me Himself – all of who He is.
He’s promised me His love.
He’s promised me that He’s not finished with me yet. He’s promised me He loves me. He’s died for me. He’s given me abundancy. He’s given me life. He’s given me love. He’s given me a reason to live. He is what no one else can ever be. He is always with me. He is always for me. He is not going to let me down. He is ever present, whether I feel it or not. He is always great, whether I think so or not. He does not change. My perspective can change, my world can change, every single thing around me can change but He can not. And He will stay the same yesterday, today, and forever. He loved me the moment He formed the world, and He will love me the moment He takes the world. And someday I will meet Him face to face and He will call me home, and I don’t have to fear when that day comes, instead I can live, because it’s Christ, and to die is gain. And Christianity, this man named Jesus flips every single thing upside down on it’s head because it’s who He is. Every single thing that’s ever made sense doesn’t when it comes to Jesus. It simply doesn’t. A God who created the entire world but loves us and wants to know us?! What?! How beautiful. How wonderful. How indescribable. There aren’t quite words. Nothing quite justifies any of it, any beauty, especially God’s.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord. Thank you Holy Spirit. WOW. You are so good, so great, so awesome, so wonderful. May I never lose my wonder God. May my heart never become numb to all that you have. May I run straight into your arms unafraid for all the days of life.
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He did so, so, so many beautiful things the last nine months.
He changed life as I know it, He changed people’s worlds around me, and He changed my world the most; the most unexpected, beautiful surprise.
He healed people, He brought people hope, He provided time and time over and over again in prayer, in preaching, in leading worship, when I was afraid and didn’t know how to give hope to people. It was all Him, the lives changed and healed and made new. He simply asked me to be His hands and feet and go, and so I did, and will only get to continue. It’s just the beginning of all of the beautiful journeys of life ahead!
For each of you who have prayed for me during this adventure, who have supported me, who have read blogs or encouraged me, thank you. From the bottom of my heart! Thank you!
Thank you for partnering with me in bringing the kingdom to Cambodia, Thailand, Malawi, and Guatemala. Thank you for believing in this mission and taking a step of faith to support me or pray for me.
This year has been abundantly more than all that I could’ve asked or thought, because of the power of Jesus Christ. Thank you Jesus!
