Ive been trying to think about what id write as an ‘end of race blog’ …and its not been an easy task.
Its hard enough to try and summarize a year of your life let alone a year that you’ve intentionally submitted to being stretched and challenged and willingly put yourself in countless uncomfortable situations.
So what did I learn…what was the race like…what are the thoughts im walking away with.
I couldnt have anticipated what this year would look like or be…you can’t. Read all the blogs you want, watch all the videos and talk to all the alum you want but you just can’t…and honestly you dont want to. Not knowing is a huge part of the challenges that grow and stretch you… If you perfectly prepared yourself then where would the surrender be? If you knew how to handle every situation where would your faith be?
This year was hard…It was completely worth it but it was also hard. That is, however, what you sign up for. I just didnt understand what hard would mean until I got here, my first two and a half months showed me just how hard it would be and I had to revaluate if I wanted to be here. What if the whole year looked like those first couple months? Did I want to do it? Could I do it?
I decided yes but I didnt understand that first bit until the last couple weeks. I didnt understand what the Lord had done back there …it hadn’t made much sense until He told me. Im grateful to know now that those first couple months were especially hard and made me feel out of character because I was…the Lord had allowed me in His grace to revert back into some old ways of thinking and feeling because they had never been properly addressed under the healing blood of Jesus. So during that time He asked me to walk out relationship in the middle of not knowing what was happening or what he was doing…I was walking blind and wondering if I trusted him enough to keep walking. Im so glad that I did.
It wasnt until month nine (Mongolia) that something really broke…. Id have moments where id feel like my normal self here and there but nothing consistent …those around me didnt understand it and neither did I. In month two I sent a complaining ‘life is hard’ email to a friend who’d done the race, I wanted sympathy and a pat on the back and instead she knocked me on the side of the head and reminded me that even if I had to wait until month 11 and it was the day before we flew home, but the reason for it all was more of Papa that the Julie she knew would run hard and run fast and never stop until then… that it would be well worth it. She called me out on a lot and questioned where id allowed myself to go because the Julie talking wasnt who she knew …and she was right. Since that email Ive walked this race saying that even if I have to wait until month 11 im going to go after it..it will be worth it…
Im so thankful that I didnt have to wait until month 11…that He broke something off in Mongolia that I’m still not even sure what happened or why or what shifted but Im glad It did. That month I finally felt like myself…but not like my old self..something new. He seemed to take everything, the good, the bad and make it new.
In order to prepare me for that release he had to drop several bombs a few months before. At the end of Vietnam (Month 6) He challenged me with the phrase “Living before an audience of one” and convicted me of caring way more of what people thought of me than id ever cared to admit…even to myself. From that time in Vietnam up until Mongolia (so all through Malaysia and Philippines) He was breaking me from needing any approval other than himself…He was freeing me from myself and from others. He was preparing me because he knew I wasnt ready to fully stake my identity on him…I couldnt… my identity was too easily swayed by everyone and everything else around me. Those months were choppy… id had teammates all throughout the race tell me that they saw so much more and wondered where that Julie was..the one that they knew I really was…and it frustrated me because I didnt know how to answer or how to fix it because I felt it too..all I could do was be where I was at and believe that the Lord was taking me through something even when I didnt know what it was …even when there was no clarity and only some peace.
Id forced myself into vulnerability month four in Laos… or at least I forced my foot in the door to begin walking in vulnerability …but only because the Lord had specifically cornered me into it. He told me that the month of Laos I wasnt going to have any personal communication with anyone outside of my team that month so I obeyed ..and it forced me to share things with my team because I had nobody else to tell things to. I didnt like it…didnt see the point …but I did it. Every week we have to write our celebrations and challenges to send to all the leadership over our squad and everyone praying for us…this was also the month that the Lord convicted me of writing things in that update that id never mentioned to my team …so from then on that weekly update was my check….- had I shared all of it with the team…if I hadn’t then it became top priority that I did ASAP. I don’t think vulnerability broke until maybe Philippines. That month was awful for me… every part of myself felt completely off …it felt like depression or something..and the last thing I wanted was a team to ask questions and have to explain things I couldnt to. It forced me to be ugly in front of people… I had to just be real, that ended up meaning that I was brutally honest with them and myself about what I was thinking and what I was feeling, how tired and point less it all felt. I wasnt seeking advice …I just wanted to be left alone. Something from that month to the next created a shift though..because in Mongolia I didnt feel any of that ..it had all lifted. And since then I haven’t had any of that.
Community was my upward teeth clenched battle of this race. It was a nice idea … I just had no idea what it really was or what it would take to get there or if I really wanted it and I wasnt going to be cornered into this one. Because of everything else He had been doing the whole rest of the race, there was finally a release in Mongolia. It wasnt even conscious. When I started the race I thought I knew what community was and what it meant and then I found out that people all had different ideas of this concept…different than mine and theirs were asking more of me than I was willing to give… so I put up a hard and fast block against it and resisted. Then even when I was willing I still had no grid…I would try and adopt this ‘community’ idea and ‘fight for’ people but it was all so lost on me…I truly didnt understand it. And because I tried and couldnt figure it out I went back to resisting it and believing that it was point less and didnt make any difference and not wanting it. Then again, because of everything else He had been chipping away this year, finally in Mongolia when I wasnt trying to make it happen, I was finally willing and advocating for community.
This year involved reverting back into my old dead self for the chance of real life. It involved admitting that I cared what people thought of me and asking the Lord to convict me as many times as needed so that Id only live before an audience of one. We took baby steps into vulnerability but ultimately Id have to quit caring what others thought and just offer up what I had before I could understand the weight and value of being vulnerable with others and the power that it holds to break off our dead selves. Through living before an audience of one He took away needing approval from others and let the ‘shoulding’ stop. From that platform He could finally instill my identity … Thats largely what we have focused on these last three months of the race…Identity over and over again but before any of that stuff would have sunk in, all the rest had to go. He was after identity the whole time …the further and deeper we go in intimacy the more im convinced that its all centered around identity which you can only get through real relationship…and in that place of secure identity the junk cant stick…everything dead just falls off.
The race is hard….but well worth it. These are just the big picture things we have walked through, there are several more changes that took place along the journey just as a biproduct of the rest. He will do something unexpected … but its all intentional.
Then with just seven weeks of the race left He asked me to do something that wasnt even on my radar. Its been three years since Id seen or talked to my mom. I have the long story written out but ultimately three years ago I had decided to walk away from relationship after my mom and dad had gotten divorced because there was a lot of wounding within myself from a messed up and broken childhood. The two years before the race the Lord had walked me through a miraculous amount of healing within all of that and then with just seven weeks left he asked me to send her an email. His timing is perfect and it was only because of the two years of healing mixed with everything he’d been walking me through the rest of the race up until that point that this was even considerable in my mind. She hadn’t even been on my radar the entire rest of the race and here we were. Over the past five weeks I sent that email, got a reply back, fasted and prayed with her before having a phone conversation and now we are walking towards whole healthy relationship… Its truly miraculous. He’s done so much …
He will surprise you, ask you to do things you dont want to do, he will challenge and convict you. He will love you, speak life and love over you. He will transform you.
It doesnt begin when the race begins, it doesnt end when the race ends, the race is a specific season. One in which he will use, but its all a part of the larger story and it all points back to our Dad… He’s amazing and he is trustworthy.
This has been my race and im grateful for every moment…there are no regrets.
