The World Race is a long journey, but it isn’t an 11 month journey. God doesn’t start working in and through World Racers when they launch. Instead, he starts before we even apply. He starts as he calls us to the World Race and continues to work in us during this long process. It is crazy to see how he changes us and works in us.
God has been working in me to prepare me for this journey for a long time. My pastor frequently says, “God does not call the equipped, He equips the called.” You see, when I first signed up for this journey I wasn’t ready (I doubt that any racer is), but God spends the time leading up to Launch preparing you for this journey. When I Launch on June 28th I won’t be 100% equipped for my month in Nicaragua (month 11), but I will be prepared for South Africa. He is preparing my heart, my mind, and my body. This whole process for me has been about surrendering to Him. Which is not the easiest thing to do. He has asked me to surrender my heart, my expectations, my dreams for my future, my education, my comfort, and so much more. Recently, He has asked me to surrender my fears over to Him.
This is a really hard thing to do because when it comes to the World Race, specifically, there isn’t a lot I’m afraid of. There are a lot of things I’m not looking forward to, but in the words of my brother Andy, “You’re a Patton. You can do it.” What he meant to say is that you were born with the tough gene, you’ve got grit, you’ve been taught how to suck it up. All of this is true. So when it comes to releasing my fears for the World Race it became an inner struggle because my only two fears were internal.
Surrendering my first fear, the fear of lack of alone time (a nightmare for an introvert), was easy to let go of because I began to realize that my teammates love me and I can just ask them for it. They will understand because they love me.
The second one was harder. The fear of change was not something I wanted to give over to God, but thanks to a blog by Miranda Dinges my mind and heart were changed. I had been fighting God on this for months and in 10 minutes, I realized that I didn’t need to be afraid of this. Here is what she wrote:
“The Race Changes You. They tell you from the beginning to expect a great amount of change in a short period of time . . . The changes in me are drastic and hard to communicate. Don’t count yourself as one of the few who will come out the same you went in. There’s nothing to be gained by making this your goal. One day, maybe in month 4 or month 7 a squadmate will look at you and say, ‘You’re not the same person anymore.’ Take that as the compliment it is and rejoice in the fact that you stood up to the challenge of the Race.”
When I read this, I almost cried because I don’t want not changing to be my goal. I want to be the women God intends for me to be (and I am not her yet). However, I like know what to expect from myself. But I read that and thought about it; I remember thinking that I need to embrace change. And then, God whisper to me, “Don’t embrace change, embrace me. For I never change.”
And that was it. I need to embrace my father God. He is the constant I can rely on even when change terrifies me. He is the rock I can stand on. He will not waiver or falter. He will stand strong and He will not change.
It took God 10 minutes to change my heart and my mind. It usually isn’t this simple, but I feel fearless. I have so much more growing and changing to do before this journey comes to an end, but I am accepting of this because my Lord, my God, my Friend, will never change.
