Many times it has been said, “you knew what you were signing up for when you said ‘yes’ to doing this”. And I can now confidently admit that I never did. Actually I had no clue. And let me give you some context as to how and why.
Before the World Race I was in an unhealthy relationship for a year, beginning the summer before my junior year of high school. Before that, I had grown up in church my entire life, knowing the Truth and having many encounters and experiences with the Lord. As that unhealthy relationship extended sin entered in my life in a whole new way, in a way I didn’t think could be redeemed. But even then, before I even knew I could hear the Lord’s voice, a friend invited me-very randomly-to a Baptist missionary retreat for a weekend in December of 2016. I went and returned not with missions on my heart or mind but a fiercer self-condemnation for my sins. Fast forward about five months and the trip to Spain with school I had been saving all of my money for fell through because my dad didn’t follow through with saving the amount he told me he would in order to help me go. And two months later I spent what I’d saved on a missions trip to Trinidad with the help of my grandma. July of 2017 I was in Trinidad for one week, out of the unhealthy relationship but still in need of a lot of healing and just Jesus in general, and I Briefly met a girl who had previously done the World Race and just happened to mention it. Now when I say she mentioned it, I mean I asked her about a tattoo on her arm in another language and she said she got it in Asia while on the World Race and the conversation then went to the evangelical use of that tattoo and completely left the subject of the World Race. Three months later I didn’t want to go to college and the World Race was still somehow prevalent in my mind so I applied and was accepted. Meanwhile my lifestyle hadn’t improved and had actually declined this entire time until training camp where I was introduced, really, to the Father and later I realized how He had been leading me here throughout those couple years of falling out of His Truth.
The point of me sharing all of this is that at training camp I was a wreck. I had two years worth of pain and sin and self hatred I had to let go of in order to grab what He had for me, which at the time was comfort. Then, as I let Him comfort and heal me, He spoke strength and faith and love over me but I still didn’t know what any of that looked like. So come launch and I had No idea what these nine months were going to look like or consist of, and all I was doing was battling the fear and anxiety with full dependency on Him who I Just began to know. We began with one thing I wanted to let go of and worked from there; over time I grew more intimate with Him and He changed me and how I thought and lived.
My “yes” at the beginning of the Race was blind. Blind faith and personal growth goals and hope and trust in the Jesus I was beginning to know. What I realized today during a discussion on entitlement with the squad is that as the Race went on I forgot even that yes and my concerns shifted from following His voice in all ways to fully selfish ambitions: about My relationship with Him, about My understanding of Him, about My eternity.
It’s not easy to share this, especially on a blog, but it was a revolutionary epiphany that will change the way I finish this race. And I don’t just mean the World Race, haha, but the race mentioned in Hebrews 12:1-2, the rest of my life. I have a new “yes”; a “yes” that better knows and carries the cost and weight of my own cross.
