It’s a strange moment to write a final blog…Stateside and sitting curled up on a friend’s couch. I feel more clean than I have in the past year. And more comfortable. It’s a good feeling to get readjusted to all the comforts of home with good friends. Eleven months is a long time, but then again it feels like I was just here and that the past year is a dreamy blur.
A lot has happened in this blur of a year. And it’s hard to sum it up, just like any other year of your life. All those questions they warned us about at final debrief are starting to creep up in conversations. “How was it?” “What did you learn?” “Did you have any pivotal moments?”
Whew. I still have a lot to process, and I don’t necessarily have easy answers for all those questions, but that’s why I’m glad I had the chance to put this little video together in the meantime. It was something we were asked to do for final debrief, and it was good for my own processing, too.
Just like any other day or month or season, the year on the race was filled with all kinds of ups and downs, good times and bad, feeling like you’re doing something worthwhile and feeling like you are making no difference.
When I worked as a teacher there were times when it felt like everything I poured out was wasted and some rare moments when I could sense the Lord working through me in powerful ways. It was similar on the race. Lots of moments of being obedient without seeing the big picture and a few rare gems of seeing God break through and do something incredible. Those moments make all of the other days worth it.
I hope you can get a small glimpse through this video of what I mean and see why it was worth it to leave normal life behind for a year in order to encounter the unknown, the unrecognized, the forgotten and the ones who need someone else standing in their corner, even if it is just to encourage them to take one step forward.
It was worth it to have mirrors held up to my own face and to have to acknowledge my own weaknesses and sinful tendancies and plain old bad habits. You leave thinking you’re one kind of person and you come home with a truer understanding of your own character…the good as well as the not so good parts. Hmm, I guess the race kind of sounds like the picture I have of what marriage should be: revealing, refining, hard, fun and totally worth it.
Now that this chapter is ending, let me just say thank you one more time for being some of the people standing in my corner and getting me through this journey (and welcoming me home from it) in so many different ways. I couldn’t have done this alone, and there were so many times when your messages and encouragement got me through some tough moments. Thank you for the part you played in helping me to keep moving forward this year.
(PS, I’m back in Georgia! Message me but not on my phone just yet. I’m pretty sure that is somewhere in Cambodia…)
Love,
-Heather (aka Gerber, Heaven, Hello, Headah and all of the other alternate pronuciations of my name)
