They say that coming home is the hardest part of the Race. That the shock of America is greater than that of a country like Thailand. That you’ll feel alone amidst the endless coffee dates and friends and family. Although some people want to understand, nobody really gets it. How was my trip? Really good, but really a lot of other things at the same time. What was my favorite country? All of them, for different reasons. One word answers don’t explain what it was like. A lunch date discussing my “trip” doesn’t even scratch the surface of my past year of life.
Leaving my best friends from the World Race was heart breaking. I’ve never cried so much in 24 hours than I did the night with my squad in Miami before flying to Atlanta. These people get me. They know me. My heart physically aches from loving so many so deeply all at once and from saying constant goodbyes.
All alone for the first time in 9 months, I check in and they print my ticket home. Where are the other 50 of “us”? I’m sitting by a stranger and being offered a glass of ginger ale with ice in it, and this time, I don’t have to wonder if it’s purified or not. Am I ready?
I’m now so used to adapting to new environments, becoming more of the person God created me to be with every step. Will that happen again as I transition home? Can that even happen in America? Is it possible to put into practice the things I’ve learned in this context? Suddenly, I realize that being normal has become a foreign concept to me.
On May 29th, I arrived back to the place I’ve known as “home” for the last 18 years. It feels the same. But I don’t. I feel different. I know I’ve changed. I must have changed. Did I change? I keep pinching myself to see if being home is a dream, or if the World Race itself was a dream. Did it really happen? Sharing testimonies of the things God did this last year with people and at church reminds me of the things the Lord has taught me and brought me through. It was real. It happened.
Okay, I’ve done this before, I can do it again. Go hang out with people. Get back into your life guarding job. I have had about 25 dates to “talk about my trip” in the last 3 weeks. Extroverted me can play that role. Talkative me loves it. Busy, busy, busy… because that’s American me. Always filling my empty tank with social life or stuff or my iPhone. Feeling a bit lonely, kind of alienated, and pretty purposeless. In the midst of being home, I couldn’t see what was wrong with me. I slipped back into my marked out roles. Honestly, World Race me has been disappointed with home me.
These past weeks have been a whirlwind. It’s like that slide at a water park where you are shot into this big toilet bowl, and go around and around until you suddenly get plopped right into a body of water underneath, and you can’t remember which way is up. For the past few weeks, I have been holding my breath.
Enter: Project Searchlight. This week is designed for World Racers that have just gotten off the field to come together at Adventures in Missions headquarters. It is a week of revival. Worship. Space to think. Celebration. Renewal. Debrief. Feeling fully alive.
This week, I’ve talked with the Lord about what it looks like to be home for this season, about the future, about truths I’ve forgotten. It was like coming up for air. I can breathe now. I can breathe now. The weight is lifted. I’m letting Him fill in the holes.
I am waging war on normalcy. On complacency. On numbness. On apathy. On living a life that’s anything less than full and abundant. I’m waging war, even here.
My generation has the unfortunate tendency to choose mediocrity over the greatness that God offers. I am not made for that kind of living. I choose to dream big because my God is big, and He is able to do immeasurably more than I could ever ask or imagine.
I’m trusting God like never before. I’m doing life with His Spirit inside me from now until forever. It’s going to be wild.
This fall, I’m called to go to UGA. I know that The Lord is working and moving like crazy across that campus and across Athens, and I am expectant to see what will happen through me as I live life with Him there. The World Race is not going to be the biggest or craziest thing that I will do or experience. It is just a training camp for what’s next.
I’m going to start wearing glittery nail polish. To me, it represents the Spirit with me. It looks like childlike faith. Big dreams. Life isn’t meant to be mundane. Whimsy. Don’t take life too seriously. I’m going to start dancing more and worshiping more because I’m free.
I’m no longer a “World Racer,” not that it was about that anyway. I choose to not find my identity in what I do, but in who I am. Today, I feel brand new and bold and confident and ready to take on the world again, hand in hand with my Father.
