Hello Everybody,
Well I have been home for 6 weeks now, and this blog is definitely late in coming, but let’s be honest… all my blogs were late in coming 🙂
Life has been a bit overwhelming, wonderful, sad, exciting, full of wonderful food, a clean bed, hot showers….. ______________ pretty much fill in any emotion / item (apparently) and that has been life over the past six weeks.
When I first arrived home, the emotion of being home was indescribable, not to mention strong and overwhelming. This crazy concoction of joy, and absolute heartbreak all at once, both as real as the other, has become this fuzzy cloud I have walked in over the last six weeks. And although there are moments where that cloud is still very very thick, the intense density doesn’t come quite as often as it did in the beginning.
As I have began to process the Race, and all that this year has been, I sit in a “dream state” almost unbelieving that I had the privilege to such a chapter. However, I am so blessed to know that it is and forever will be apart of my story.
As sit in my apartment now, back at school, surrounded by what should be so familiar I am flooded by memories of this last year. No more are songs about the nations singing praises to Jesus, a semblance of my imagination, but they are a reality. I have touched and held the singing souls across the world. I have heard their stories, seen their tears, literally heard their songs with my own ears. I have seen brokenness and despair, yes! But I have also seen Joy, and Hope, Peace and Trust unlike I’ve ever known before. I’ve seen worship in every tongue… the Nations truly are crying out!!!!
When I think back on how I have grown, how I have changed, I sit in amazement that God would take something so foreign and make it so familiar, something so scary and make it peaceful, someplace so far away and make it home. God took me down into the valley, and oh my goodness was it a deep valley, but God TOOK me there… He went with me, and He made my valley my mountaintop…. my sweet haven, my secret place. I have learned the beauty in such a place, and I’m so thankful He loved me enough to take me there. He showed me the depth of His love in the depth of the valley, and let that love catapult me to a mountain higher and more beautiful than I could ever dream.
I have all these wonderful memories and experiences that have shaped me, but when I sit at home now thinking about the race, the part that makes my heart smile, as well as ache are the people that I did this journey with… who did this journey with me. The people who stuck by me, held me while I cried, celebrated with me in the triumphs, held my hand through the muck and the mire, shouldered my burdens, so I wouldn’t walk it alone. The people who’ve seen what I’ve seen, and know what I know. Whose hearts have been forever changed, and whose reality has become my own.
So this blog is to you L squad!!!!
Thank you for your love… thank you for your faithfulness… thank you for your fire and passion that changed the hearts of so many, including mine!!! I love you all! You’re family, and I can’t wait to do the rest of life with you, to continue to celebrate with you, and walk it out.
The Race is only a beginning!!!!!
Miss you all like crazy, and love you tons!!!!
