“‘Friends it’s been a long trip. Welcome home.’ Because of the way he said it, we all welled up and fought back tears. I wiped my eyes as I reflected in that moment about all the uncertainty that had come with the journey, all the sloppy sailing and how little I knew. But none of that mattered now because we had completed the race.” – Bob Goff, Love Does
Wow. Today is the last day of this incredible journey. Tomorrow I will say goodbye to my teammates and my squad and for the first time in nearly a year travel by myself. It’s a strange thing to think that this crazy life I’ve been living is coming to an end. At this point the chaotic, insane, amazing lifestyle of the World Race as come to feel normal and I’m not really sure how to act in “normal society” anymore. But that’s a whole different story.
Like Bob Goff wrote in his book, this week I have had time to reflect on all the things I have done this year, all the places I’ve been, and all the lessons I have learned. I want to share a last couple lessons with you, that I’m hoping to bring home with me. Specifically I want to share about two chapters in the Bible that greatly impacted the last few months of my race. Now you might read these next few words, paragraphs whatever and think “yeah, this is stuff that she should’ve learned years ago”. And perhaps I did, but over the course of this past year the Lord has altered my perspective so that I am now fully understanding these lessons.
Back in Malaysia I had come to the realization that I had been coasting through a lot of the race. Meaning that I hadn’t really been putting the effort in that I could to get the most out of my year. And I made the decision that I was no longer okay with that, so I chose to start fully committing, whatever that looked like. For the month of April that looked like me memorizing and meditating on Hebrews 11. God fully knew what He was doing was He spoke to me that I should memorize that chapter, because I had just come from a huge breakdown of finding that I was seriously doubting the Lord.
Through the process of consistently reading and reciting the words of Hebrews 11 God showed me that it was okay for me to doubt Him sometimes, because all of these “faith celebrities” had done the same thing. I learned the meaning of the verse that talks about faith like a mustard seed from earlier in the New Testament. The people in Hebrews 11 were ordinary people just like me, they had nothing more than I did. They just had their faith and they chose to give everything they had to their God, even when they weren’t 100% sure of Him. And God always came through.
Thinking back to where I was at the beginning of the race to where I am now I know that this chapter and the truths held within it will stick with me and have influenced the way I look at life now. I am going back home to an apartment that I have to pay rent for without a job lined up, but I know that the Lord will provide a way for the money I need to come in. I have no clue what my plans are for after graduation, but I’m trusting that even if He waits until the last minute, the Lord will provide direction. I am not the same girl who wrote a blog in Uganda worrying about money.
After memorizing Hebrews 11 I decided I would attempt to memorize a new chapter each month for the remainder of the race. I memorized 1 Corinthians 13 in Guatemala, but struggled to memorize Psalm 139 in Honduras. This past month in Nicaragua I spent time really thinking about the words David wrote in that chapter.
I didn’t memorize it, but I did see these familiar verses in a new light. One night my teammate/roommate and I were awake late at night and I began going on what she and I have coined “a philosophical rant”. I was rambling, my mind all over the place, and suddenly I was overwhelmed by the fact that the God who created thousands of different species of trees, balanced the chemical properties of our air, placed the sun and stars in space in just the right spot,made each and every single person on this earth, all 7 billion of us, with infinitesimal differences and individualities. I was completely awestruck by this. The Father gave me big brown eyes that sometimes change color, He gave my teammate Carson a sweet Southern accent, He gave some of my squad mates faces full of freckles, others with wide feet, some with artistic talents, and so many other things and there are only forty of us. I can’t even begin to understand the creativity it takes in order to do that seven billion times!
This past month I found a new appreciation for the verses that read: For I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful I know that full well. I have struggled for so long in the comparison game, wishing that I looked like somebody else. But I now fully comprehend that I was created just as I am with care, purpose, and a love so deep that nothing and no one can describe or completely understand it.
I have learned more than I could ever put into words about who I am, how I relate to other people, and who God is. Part of me is afraid that when I get home I will not have the same relationship with the Lord I do now, but I’m learning that just like He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow He is the same in every part of the world. It’s us that choose to experience Him differently. I have had a change in perspective and I now know that no matter where I go my Father will always be there to welcome me home.
