I look at my little desk calendar and wonder what I will be thinking this time next year as it will
be just weeks if not days from my return back to the States after almost a year of being gone.
Will I still want to come home or will my view & outlook on life have been so dramatically
shattered and rebuilt that I will look upon my old life as foreign. I am sure I will be bursting on
the outside with smiles and happiness as I see my friends and family, get to sleep in my own bed,
and have the “comforts” of American life around me again. I wonder though, will I be dying
inside, knowing that there is so much more to life than these comforts around me. Will God
have affected my life so much that I know I cannot return home and be the same person, selfish,
wanting, desiring those things that we as Americans feel like it is our right to have. I cannot wait
to return home more thankful for the small, somewhat insignificant things I have the privilege of
owning because so many people that I will have encountered in those past 11 months don’t. My
heart is about to be forever changed, the lens with which I view life is about to be dirtied beyond
belief, only to be wiped cleaner than it ever was before because my eyes will have seen God, His
miracles, and His love work in unspeakable ways.
If you would have told me a year ago that I'd be going on an 11 month mission trip around the
world, I probably would have told you yeah right or I wouldn’t do that! Now here I sit filling
out my exit interview papers and looking at the countdown….my last day of work is in just 15
days. I am privileged enough to get to spend the holidays with my family and then I leave for
Atlanta in 35 days to be reunited with some amazing individuals I call family!! I don't need it to
be Thanksgiving, November, or the holidays to be thankful, because I have so much more to be
thankful for this year!
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Be bold!
