The kind that makes a single night seem like both eternity and the blink of an eye simultaneously?
I have. I sort of am…right now.
Before taking me out, my date showed up at my house with the most incredible apparel, like Freddie Prince Jr. does in that super 90s movie about the artsy girl he falls in love with in high school when he brings his little sister over to do her make up for some huge party, and artsy-girl ends up looking absolutely stunning before they go out…
I feel like my date did something like that, because I feel incredible about how I look…but I haven’t actually seen what I look like clearly, because my date is much more imaginative than Freddie Prince Jr. (ohhhh, plus he’s not a jerk like Freddie Prince Jr. in that movie), and he blindfolded me or something while he was adorning me with gorgeous-ness to take me to some surprise location.
I can tell we’re in a theater of some kind. Maybe an auditorium. The acoustics are too good for it to not be a performance hall, and the smell of a wooden stage floor isn’t one I’ll ever forget…but I could swear we came in through the back, and walked down through the aisles past the phases of on-lookers, eager for something to start…but then it seems like we walked right up the steps and onto the stage itself, and we’re just standing there hand in hand.
One beautiful, blindfolded girl with the love of her life’s hand securely wrapped around hers. From the muted shuffling sounds in front of us I’m pretty sure the main curtain in front of us is closed – so the big reveal, it’ll be two parts.
MAN that’s climactic…whatever’s behind that curtain must be incredible…no matter how extravagant or how simple, it’s going to be incredible.
photo credit
And, although this is the end of my race, I feel like this date is just beginning.
It’s probably pretty obvious at this point that my date is Jesus, and He’s brought me on an incredible and transformative and perfectly romantic adventure-date, and we’re standing on the precipice of something amazing that He’s got in store for me next
…
…I just don’t know what it is yet.
To be honest, I don't even really know what I look like. I know what I look like in race-life, but I wont really see the contrast of who I've become this year until I try to put post-race me in some of the same places pre-race me lived.
It’s the last month of the race – a month that is SURE to be full of incredible ministry, I can tell that just from the day and a half I’ve spent in Penang – but it’s also going to be a month of preparation, and a month of sealing.
A month that contains so much finality and so much beginning at once.
I can never tell in late September if the summer is ending or the fall is beginning. I know that by winter, I’ll see two distinct seasons in the immediate past, but in the transition I suppose the season depends on perspective.
I want both. Is that selfish?
I want to ride out the summer for all it’s got, and I want to welcome in autumn with all the crisp anticipation it deserves, and as the verbal-processor I am, the best way I can think to make sure I do that is to write about both.
So, while I’m on this drawn-out, but fleeting month of a date with Jesus waiting to see what’s behind the curtain (aka: what’s next for Kacie Lynn) and what’s there without the blindfold (aka: who I’ve become, how I’ve changed, and how I’m still changing) – I’m going to be writing, and I’m going to include you.
I’ll tell you what’s going on in my head – as you can expect, if you’ve been reading my blog this year, I wont hold much back. If I freak out, I freak out. If I don’t actually realize I’m going home until I land at LAX…or even Washington Dulles International Airport (where it always amuses me to hear parents tell their children that they’re “in DC!” because they’re actually a good 40-60 minute drive away from the city – don’t be fooled, travelers! None of the “DC” Airports are in D.C.!), then I don’t fully realize I’m going home until I’m home.
The worst thing I can think of myself doing right now, though, is being silent.
Soaking it up, taking it in…those things are good, and I plan to do those things (whatever they really mean), but if I don’t also actively process what’s going on – especially when big-ish things are going on – they turn into something that festers, and festering is never good (except for maybe Uncle Fester, but only because he’s sort of funny…or was he a con-man? Or dead? I don’t remember).
photo credit
Either way, welcome to the romance, mystery, ministry, and adventure of my month 11.
You’ll get to read about what I'm doing practically here, about the fun things to do on the island we’re living on, about the sweetness of Malaysian culture and the beauty of Jesus’s love radiating through His work here…
But you’ll also get to read about the good, the bad, and the ugly as the world race’s #11n11 comes to a close for me and what that side of the reality of this month looks like from my perspective.
What exactly does that mean I’m gonna blog about this month?
I don’t know, but I guess we’ll both find out pretty soon!
Happy July, everyone! I’m coming home!
Or I just started a 3-ish week long mission trip in Malaysia, depending on your perspective.
