I am just going to be honest…
Every now and then when I write a blog I feel an expectation to have a solution to what I am writing about, and it can be a mental battle to stay vulnerable and be real, so I haven’t written in awhile because quite frankly I wasn’t sure how to convey where I am at.
It is month 8 of the race, and we are in India.
At this point, a lot of things are happening:
– You can see the finish line in the distance, but you still have a good amount of time to spend remaining present, growing, and making an impact.
– What people may consider an abnormal life has become normal to you.
– There are things you are so incredibly tired of, and then there are things you don’t know how you will live without.
– Everything… and I do mean everything, in your back pack stinks, and you are convinced you will never know what normal human scents or clean clothes smell like again.
– You are the oldest racers on the field now, and are watching other squads launch.
– You have booked your plane tickets home.
– You cannot believe it has been 8 months… where has the time gone?
– You reached that point, that point where at launch you thought you would have everything figured out by now, that you would know what your calling was, and the next step would already be falling into motion.
Some do and that’s great… but that is not where I am at.
Let me tell you some fears I have struggled with on this race….
The things in my friends and families lives that I would miss while being gone.
The things that wouldn’t change even after all this time.
Discovering the people who would make an effort to keep in touch with me and the ones who wouldn’t.
Losing people I loved.
The fear of people only wanting a surface answer from me when ill be asked how my year was.
The fear of falling back into all the lies when I return.
The fear of choosing the wrong path, the wrong calling.
And probably the greatest one of them all… The fear of not having an answer or a plan, the fear of the question, “What am I doing next?”
My heart feels like it is going to beat out of my chest and my stomach is going to drop out of my body when the subject of callings come up. You would never know it by just looking at me, but usually I am on the verge of wanting to throw up. I turn into an anxious mess, mostly because I like having a plan, I like having an answer, and I am in my head analyzing every possible route my life could take.
Wait myers-briggs, INTJs are driven by perspectives and effectiveness, allowing them to see implications far into the future, making decisions based on practical application, answering the question “What works?” Many find themselves unsure of what exactly they want to bring to the world, and feel they have to have a complete picture of what it looks like before they can move forward? You may just be onto something!
There it is… I try to have is all figured out, all planned out, before taking the next step. I like to control the situation, but what took many hard lessons to learn was that I cannot control life.
Let me tell you something about plans…
I planned to play basketball in college… messed up my ankle.
I planned to go to college after high school… traveled the world instead.
I planned to go to college only when I knew for sure what I wanted to do as not to waste money… then I chickened out of what I originally wanted to do and went for Respiratory Therapy because it took less time, and I was in a rush to start my life, and now have a nice accumulation of school debt.
I planned on graduating and already having a secure job from my internship…
Never in a million years… did I plan on The World Race, and never in a million years did I think I would find myself at almost 25 and back at square one.
Before the race, I never stopped and asked the question what did God want for my life? I was too busy running from Him and trying to do things my own way, I never stopped and asked what His calling was.
One of the most profound statements I find in the bible is in the book of Esther…
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14
Here, Esther is staring at her calling right in the face. Everything she had ever been through, being orphaned, being taken, the beauty treatments, keeping silent about being a Jew, being beautiful, being chosen by the King, reigning as a Queen… everything was set up leading her to this moment… the choice to step into what God was calling her to do and advocate for the Jews and possibly face death by her own husband.
She could have said no, and God would have used someone else… but she knew this was what she was created to do… and regardless if it scared her this is where she fully steps into it, fully putting her trust in God, knowing full heartedly that by choosing Him her outcome could be death, and that by not choosing Him her outcome could still be death.
I think we are all faced with this choice, what will we do with the time that is given to us?
We will face death eventually, and what will we have used our life for?
So here is the thing, all those fears… they are things I cannot control.
I have missed many things.
There are things that may never change.
There are people who I am still close to and others that I am not.
Three people I loved have passed away since I have been gone.
The majority of people will only want to hear the surface.
I will fall and I may take wrong turns.
The biggest one of them all… the answer is I don’t know… I don’t know the next step yet.
Those fears are all things strategically designed by the enemy to keep me from trusting the Lord, because there is much to be learned in the unknown, of relying on not your own understanding.
What I do know is that the Lord has been, and is still continuing to set my life up for something greater. I know that He is going to use the wrong turns in my life for His glory. I know that He loves me, and He knows the plans that He has for me. The only thing I have control of is being willing to say yes, and trust Him even when I cannot see what is ahead. Where He leads may not make sense to people… but you know what, thats okay… because the disciples life didn’t make sense to a lot of people either.
There will come a day in the very near future when The World Race will end for me and I will find myself in the USA right back where I began my journey at the beginning of this year.
I won’t have a title… not missionary, not respiratory therapist… facebook won’t know what to label me. Admittedly a huge part of my self worth was found in titles… and ill be the first to say I still have my insecurities.
We give ourselves or look for titles to make ourselves feel loved or important. Titles don’t just have to be our jobs, but how we look to the public or on social media. We cling to these titles because they give us comfort, and if we don’t have them we think we are not important. We are continuously looking for love because everything that this world has to offer is never fully enough.
Well I don’t know about you… but I am sick to death of trying to live up to the unrealistic expectations of the world, to keep up the facade of a perfect life. The American dream isn’t enough for me.
Do you know the title that I do carry? Daughter. I am His daughter, He loves me and I am important to Him. God is just asking to love us, for us to be His sons and daughters, He wants a deep and intimate relationship with us. Even in the times you feel like you can’t hear what He is saying, He is still there in the silence, and sometimes the greatest growth happens in the waiting.
So I don’t know what’s next… if He will lead His daughter back to school, or to photography, or to writing, or to leadership, or to another organization, or to long term missions, or to whatever… but what I do know is that I can choose to glorify Him in whatever the next step looks like.
So I ask you, are there any titles or fears in your life that you need to get rid of?
