It is hard to believe that today is my 89th straight day back in the US. These eighty days have been full of sweet reunions, lots of food, improving health, many trials, crazy mind games, and honestly a lot of struggle adjusting to this new season of life. I have moved back to Kentucky, gone back to my beloved church, and am back at the same job I had before leaving for the race. What’s weird is this doesn’t feel like home anymore…
The whole time I was gone, I longed for this home, I missed this family, and I missed the normalicy of what life held here in America. Now that I’m here, I simply no longer fit the way that I used to, and I honestly have not figured out how to cope with that or even put it all to words yet. That’s not to say that I hate where I’m at in life by any means, that’s just to say reentry has looked incerdibly different than what I expected, and brought more struggle than I ever thought it would. But that’s where grace comes in. That same grace I learned to have with myself, my teammates, and our ministry partners on the field is the same grace the Lord is asking me to walk out daily at home while we all figure this thing out. It’s like learning to live with a new kind of language barrier, one that inhibits understanding in a different way. You, my beloved supporters are wonderful, but in all reality, there is only so much of my time on the mission field that you can understand. You, my wonderful S squad, are amazing but there’s only so much of my life today that you can understand. So what do I share with whom? Who do I lean on for what? What does it all mean?
I never expected to struggle to walk in the doors of my beloved church every Sunday. I never expected to have panic attacks at work. I never expected to no longer fully fit in with my friends that I love so dearly. I also never expected to have so many people reach out in love and want to support me in this time of transition. Though often times I don’t know what I need or how to answer that question, I am deeply grateful for each one of you who has reached out.
So much of me feels like I should be fine and have everything figured out by now, but I was gone for 11 months, and 89 days is simply not enough time back in America to have life all figured out. I have to learn to be okay with that, and to trust God‘s timing over my own. I know that for this season I have been called to life in America, and I’m learning to live that calling with fullness instead of with dread. At the same time, I’m learning that’s it is okay to miss life on the field as deeply as I do. It’s a matter of balance, which in being a former gymnast used to come easy to me, but now I live life constantly just a little off kilter and that’s okay.
I can’t thank the Lord enough for the time he had me on the field, and I’m choosing to live in that same thankfulness for this season in of life in America even on the hardest of days. So, thank you all for you’re continued support in this time. I promise to post another update soon, and I apologize for the abrupt ending of this one. I just felt the need to share these things with you all today, even though this blog is as incomplete as my reentry process.
