A guest blog one week before coming home??? Bet you didn’t expect that! Hi my name is Michelle Moxley, and I am one of Hannah’s teammates. I wanted to write you all a letter to tell you just how amazing Hannah Key is and prepare you a little more for her to come home. So here we go!!
To all of Hannah’s friends, family, and supporters,
Wow, you are all so lucky. Why? Because you get Hannah Key back in about a week, and she is pretty dang amazing. I could talk for hours on the impact she has had on me and our squad, but right now I want to address the fact that Hannah is returning to you a changed person. She is not a different person, she just has stepped more fully into who the Lord has made her to be and that has reflected in many changes in how she lives her life.
Hannah Key is a woman of peace. It isn’t a type of peace that is surface level, but it is a deep soul peace. She has found her identity in the Lord, and no longer places value on what others think of her. Before the race, she would make herself extremely busy to avoid processing hard things or handling conflict, but now she is able to dig deep in the hard times and she chooses to process both the good and bad. Hannah has grown so much in intimacy with the Lord, and places intentional time with Him above all else. She is confident that she hears His voice, and she is obedient to Him. As a result of obedience, Hannah is incredibly good at saying the hard things that need to be said. She is extremely humble and takes correction very well because of the peace that she has found in her identity.
In finding confidence in her identity, Hannah has also found extreme freedom in letting go of the fear of being unliked. Before the race, she found a lot of her identity in what she did and how busy she made herself. She felt the need to always be doing something exciting so people would want to be around her. But the Lord has helped her step into the realization that she doesn’t need to be doing anything for people to like her, she just needs to be who she is. In Swaziland we haven’t really had many fun options to do on the weekends. We have two options- stay at our base or go to the local convince store. At the beginning of the race this would have stressed Hannah out because she couldn’t do anything. But let me tell you, some of my favorite Saturdays have been spent with Hannah literally doing nothing for the entire day. Her joy and energy is just as infectious when we are sitting, sweating in our bunks and talking as it is when we are doing activities all day.
So as I said above, you are so extremely lucky to be getting Hannah Key back soon. The transition home will be hard for her, but believe me when I say that she wants to walk through it with you. No matter if you are her best friend or barely know her, ask her questions. She wants to share with you her life for the past 9 months. Ask intentional questions and be ready to be amazed when you hear what else the Lord has been doing in her life. Take her out to coffee for me, (maybe pay for it too!!) and love her so well because she deserves it.
Much Love,
Michelle Moxley
