I’m sitting in my hotel room in Atlanta, GA waiting for 7 o’clock so I can check in at launch!
Over the last few days I’ve been reflecting on how 2018 gave me the highest highs and the lowest lows of my entire life, and I thought I’d share with you.
At the start of 2018 I didn’t value myself. I didn’t value my relationships. Honestly, I didn’t value much. I thought I was going crazy. Losing my marbles. Having a quarter life crisis. Whatever you want to call it, it was happening. I thought I messed everything up, and I couldn’t recover from it…and then God met me in my mess.
To be specific, He met me sobbing in my apartment floor with the lyrics, “you crash over me, and I’ve lost control but I’m free…you crash over me, I’m where you want me to be – I’m going under, I’m in over my head.” I was lost. I was alone. I was depressed. I was isolated. And that’s when it hit me. I had my plans packed in a car going nowhere fast, and the Lord quite literally crashed me…and that’s where He wanted me.
I have never had to trust in God more than I did in 2018. This year stretched my faith and taught me to lean into the silence, lean into the loneliness, lean into the drought. When I couldn’t see God, I chose to look harder. When I couldn’t hear God, I chose to listen harder. When I couldn’t feel God, I chose to stay anyways. And it was H A R D. It tested me. I had doubts and I had fears. But here I am to tell about the fruit it produced. That day, laying in the floor of my apartment, I knew. I knew the Lord was calling me to something higher than a life of work, eat, sleep.
So mid-June I quit my job with no plan in place. OOPS. After a lot of curious looks and questions from literally everyone, I decided I should probably make a plan. I went to a coffee shop (naturally) and sat down searching the web for camp nurse positions. I wanted something fun and interesting, where I could make a difference in people’s lives. I looked, and looked, and looked, and nothing stuck out… well, I’ve always known about the world race but I’ve always said no. It wasn’t the right time, I was too scared, a year was too long…but that day in the coffee shop I texted my mom and said “I’m applying for the world race” and I haven’t looked back since then. I knew that I was made for such a time as this! This was why God stripped me of the life I knew. This is what He was preparing me for. This was the only decision that I felt peace about the entire year. And the moment I said yes to God again, the storms inside me settled.
So here I am. Sitting in my hotel room at launch feeling so abundantly blessed to have made it out of 2018 alive (s/o to my mom for surviving with me), and to be trusted by the God of the universe to spread His kingdom. I don’t feel worthy, I don’t feel wise enough, I don’t feel equipped…but as they say, “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.”
e.m.
