At the beginning of the race, I told God, “I will never live overseas.” I was begging Him to let me have a mediocre life in little old Albert Lea, Minnesota for the rest of my life because it was safe, it was familiar, and I didn’t want to leave my family again. I love Albert Lea and having all of my sweet family in arms reach. God has made me a family-oriented person and has made me to love being present for things going on in my family. This year has been hard because I have missed some big and hard moments in my family’s lives. At the beginning of the race, I kept telling myself that I would never miss another big or hard moment after these 9 months because I was doing my time now. With this mindset, I have realized that I would definitely miss out on the other side of the mountain that God has for me. Sure, the side of the mountain I am on now is beautiful, but this side is familiar to me and the other side has so much more. While choosing to walk to the other side of the mountain, you may have to miss some things that you really enjoy, but it is always more fulfilling when we walk in step with God and His God-sized dreams.
The mountaintops from His path are gorgeous, why settle for the easy path? The easy path consists of living someplace you feel safe with people who know who you are and what you’re about; they make living life for Jesus easy. The easy path for me is Albert Lea; I wanted to go back after the race, get a job somewhere, find tons of serving opportunities, find my husband, get married, have kids, and never leave.
Throughout the race, God has opened my mind up to so much more. I have been on beautiful mountaintops in places I’ve never heard of in the world, meeting beautiful people who have souls on fire for Jesus. I have met extraordinary people all over the world who are doing crazy things for the kingdom; things I only ever dreamt of doing. And through all of these new opportunities, God has reminded me that my life could be like this; I didn’t have to choose into mediocracy. Instead, I could choose to jump into bold dreams that others never thought could be a reality and give all the glory to God through the good and the bad. What if in choosing my safe life I would miss out on opening an orphanage for hundreds of children, traveling to almost every country in the world, preaching the gospel to an unreached people group and witnessing them come to Christ, get married to a wonderful man and adopt beautiful orphans with him, writing blogs and making documentaries of the things God is doing in my life and reaching thousands of people, and so much more. The dreams you have are not too hard for God to fulfill and actually, He wants to do more in your life than your biggest dreams. You may simply dream to go back to your favorite village in Jamaica yearly, but God’s dream is for you to host many mission teams to the village to bring so much more love, knowledge, and help than you can do on your own. Sometimes, the dreams you think are too impossible are the very dreams God wants to fulfill in your life. Your life is never more mediocre than you allow it to be and for too long, I wanted to settle for the mediocre because it was it easy. But, the hardest things are always the most beautiful in the end. Choose to dream bigger; not only because you want to experience something more, but because you are fully confident in the God-sized dreams that are being put into place behind the scenes on your behalf. God doesn’t want mediocracy for any of us; He longs to walk us through some of the most beautiful and unreached places to show us His glory and His greatness. And all you have to do is say yes, trust, and then say yes a bunch more times.
“It will take all of you, but you get all of Him.”
