Can I make a confession?
I am overwhelmed. Completely, totally, utterly, absolutely, positively, extraordinarily overwhelmed.
I have been on the race for a month- thirty eight days to be exact. And I am overwhelmed by the noises, the sights, the sounds, the cultures (both India and Nepal), the constant movement, the motos that cut it a little too close to my body for comfort. I am overwhelmed by shop owners trying to lure me in to buy souvenirs, the amount of men that stand around street food vendors while I try to figure out what is inside the food, my stuff that is strewn all over the room because to unpack and repack my bag everyday would just drive me insane.
No matter how much time I have had to process, I cannot seem to wrap my mind around the fact that I am actually here. Although I am completely present in the moment, it seems that when I crawl into bed every night, I wonder where I was all day. My feet are grounded in Nepal, but my mind has been so overloaded with the past month that it seems to have maxed out its ability to process any new information.
A large part of this is due to the fact that God has never stopped speaking since I stepped onto the field. When I awake in the morning, and I open the Word, God has something to say to me. When I finally convince myself to roll out of bed, and say good morning to my teammates, God has something to teach me. When I walk to ministry, and see His people on the streets, God opens my eyes to search for Him. When I serve and love the people God calls me to love, God appears in their eyes and their smiles. When I hear a sermon from my leadership team, when I sing a song acapella with my squad, when I pray out loud in the presence of my Church, God moves my spirit.
Now I know why world racers request that people don’t ask them, “how was the world race?” when they are done with month eleven. Because I cannot even answer when other racers on my squad ask me, “how was India?’ and we’ve only been gone a month, and they were in the country with me. I cannot summarize the month, or the country. I cannot summarize the ministry, or where my heart is at. I cannot begin to summarize the work that God has done in my life, or that I have seen Him do in the lives of the people around me.
But, I can tell you that there is nothing as breathtaking as standing crammed into a hotel room with forty-seven other people, while my teammate, India, got baptized in my bathtub, and I couldn’t even see the beauty of it. But I heard the beauty of it. I heard my coach John say, “Now, India, because you have professed in the presence of your family, I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and I heard the splash of water as it flooded over her, I heard her first breath of air, I heard the cheers and the clapping of my Church, I heard Kristen Coughlin break into the melody of “Take Courage”.
“And He who holds the stars,
Who calls them each by name,
Will surely keep his promise to me,
And I will rise in your victory.”
I cannot summarize how I am feeling, or where my mind is, or my month, my ministry, my experiences, but I can tell you that He is moving through the beautiful love of my Church, the smiles of His people, the goodness of His constant provision for me, His voice when I ask Him a question…
I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of His love, by the flooding of His grace, and the steadiness of His forgiveness.
