I’m currently in my hometown of Colorado Springs, sitting in the Kairos Coffee House where I originally heard about the Race as a 16-year-old. The last time I was in a Kairos, I was in Nepal. I’m wearing a sweatshirt I got in Swaziland and glasses I got in Vietnam. I’m writing in a journal that I got in South Africa, and my favorite shoes (that never left America) are sitting on the floor next to me. I feel like a patchwork quilt.
We landed in America a little less than 4 weeks ago. Realizing that today is the 16th of December and we landed on the 20th of November (which means that we’ve almost been home a month) makes my brain want to explode. It’s felt like days, and it’s felt like years. It’s been exciting, and new, and sweet, and it’s been normal, and uneventful, and sad. Space and silence and introvert time has been glorious and incredible and it’s been so quiet that I’ve wanted to cry (and have cried, let’s be honest). It’s been 4 weeks of learning (re-learning, I suppose) what it looks like to do normal life with normal people in normal spaces. It’s been letting people _____ (in, ask, listen, help, share, etc.). It’s been fighting lies that nothing about my life has changed and lies that I haven’t grown and lies that I’m still the same person I was when I left home almost a year ago. It’s been praying for grace, discipline, and understanding in the midst of the stress and confusion that so want to envelop and overshadow.
How’s home? Home is… weird. I have to remind myself that, other than the new Qudoba that went in on Garden of the Gods Road, Colorado Springs isn’t all that different. My parents took out some of the grass in our back yard and put in rocks instead, but other than that, my house isn’t all that different. Some people from my pre-Race community have moved, and I’m in the process of trying out some new churches, but my community isn’t all that different.
So… I guess the different part is me. I’m different (and THANK YOU JESUS because I didn’t want to come home from the Race and feel like I was the same person). And it’s not the kind of different that’s scary, or that that alienates those around me (if that ever happens, give a sista’ some feedback!), but it’s the kind of different where I KNOW what it looks and feels like to truly be alive. I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it, I’ve been there, and I don’t ever want to live a life that isn’t fully, truly alive. Throughout my life, I tried to find that source of “fully alive”. I looked for it in alcohol, in friendships, in boys, in traveling, in money… the list goes on. But this is the first time that I know I’ve found True Life; it’s Truly sustaining because it comes from our True Sustainer, it’s quiet and constant like the still, small voice of the Lord in 1 Kings 19, and it is there and real and true whether I’m sitting on an airplane, wandering around the bush in Cambodia, jumping over the side of a waterfall in Zimbabwe, drinking coffee in North Carolina, or crying on my floor in Colorado Springs. This True Life (His name is Jesus!) doesn’t ebb and flow based on how I feel. This True Life, this Jesus, is ALWAYS.
And this True Life, this Jesus, knows that home is weird. I know that He does. And He’s asked me to sit in this weirdness, this uncomfortability, this patchwork, for a while. The ambiguity of “a while” tends to drive me crazy, and that’s part of the constant surrender He’s asked me to do during this time. It’s funny, isn’t it? How I could live in a cramped house in Nepal and be woken up at 4:30 every day in Zimbabwe and spend hours and hours in a floating metal tube in the sky, but when Jesus asks me to simply sit in the weirdness and the patchwork of this transition, I don’t want to do it. Honestly, friends… I don’t. I don’t like this time of transition. It’s uncomfortable and it requires effort and it’s a battle of fighting lies and temptations. It’s feeling like patchwork; like I’m one single person made up of so many different bits and pieces of culture and community and testimony and that patchwork doesn’t really fully fit any one single place.
And in the midst of feeling like patchwork, I have to remind myself that IT’S NOT ABOUT ME. It never was, and it never will be. It’s about Jesus Christ, Lover and Savior and Healer and King of all that came before us and all that will come after us. It’s about Him. It’s about turning to Him for True Life, even when it’s not exciting or beautiful or peaceful, and even when it’s tumultuous and confusing and uncomfortable. And I’m not saying that this season at home (however long that lasts) is going to be tumultuous and confusing and uncomfortable. Home is weird, yes, and it’s awesome and I love my parents and it’s been so amazing to get to see my friends and drive my car and hug my cat… hopefully you get what I’m trying to say. But I am saying that, whatever this season holds, I want to sit in it. I want to steward it well. I don’t want to run from it. I want to embrace it with trust and open hands. I want to wrap myself up in this patchwork quilt, knowing that it’s provision and it’s protection and it’s a covering of True Life.
And reading back through all of that, I realize that there’s not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it. But hopefully, it gives you a little insight into my transition and what’s been spinning through my head as of late.
