when you’re with me
and ah, you’re my favorite thing
ah, all the love that you bring
well, it feels like i’ve opened my eyes again
and the colors are golden and bright again”
~better place, rachel platten
(the cat i’m cuddling in the photos is lizzie, the cat behind me is inca)
wow. wow wow W O W i am writing this from my bedroom, ocean waves as my white noise and the little ringing of a bell as my cat lizzie walks around my room.
these last six and a half months have been the best time of my life. so it is extremely hard, if next to impossible, to encompass my entire time when answering questions like: “are you okay? how was it? what was your favorite country?”, etc. its even more hard to realize that people WON’T get it. i can describe my time in each of the countries for hours, but nobody that asks those questions was on the race with me. they won’t get it in the way i want them to.
and that’s okay. i have to be content with that.
it’s nice and it’s hard and it’s different being back in the us. i’m sure by this point, that Abba has made me to be a wanderer. i love minimalism. i love to travel, to walk in airports and have all of my possessions on my back. i love the act of getting from one place to another, whether it’s by bus or plane or car or train. overall, i love change.
so to go from different countries that i have no clue what’s in store for me, surrounded by a christian community of 50+ people my age; to living in a three story house with just my family (who i can’t interact much with due to self-quarantining and not wanting to get them sick), is a real big change. and not one that i particularly like in this moment in time.
^^^
wifi is my ever-bearing, constant friend. i do not have good self-control when i have steadily accessible wifi. i’ve been watching new shows the last few days and just haven’t really been thinking or talking about the world race.
and it’s kind of funny: i expected to cry. i expected to be torn up inside about leaving and not having my teammates and my squamates around me all the time. but i’m not.
that’s something that Abba showed me during these months: i’m not as emotional as i thought i was. when other people are displaying strong emotions then i get swept up in that, and project it onto myself. so i thought i was going to cry and rage and storm hen i got home in the usa. i didn’t.
i think, it’s because i like to take all my experiences, to be glad that they happened at all, instead of being glum that they ended. one of my favorite cartoon shows that i had done a blog post on a while back, Steven Universe, just ended on March 28th. again, i thought i’d be crying and raging. i shed a tear during the finale. that’s it.
it’s so much easier to be happy that things happened at all. i don’t want to dwell on the ending; rather, i like to marvel that it ended, and look forward to the future and what’s in store for me there.
as it is, right now that’s a mindset that’s aggravating me. for the last few weeks, Abba has laid a desire for street evangelism in my heart. i want to go to malls and just talk with people and pray for them. i can’t really do that with the coronavirus locking everything down. so for now, i’m still praying for people, in the comfort of my bedroom instead of on the streets.
i’m bored. i’m so bored. i want to be active, in spreading the kingdom and just in moving. i’m spending my days in my bed reading or watching shows and that’s fun. but after the race? i’m itching to do stuff for Abba outside. i want to go to church and to youth group and be with a christian community of people my age.
i have a lot of ‘i wants’. but i also have a list of ‘thank You Abbas’.
thank Abba that i have a family and a house to go back to at all.
thank Abba that i was able to get back home to Westfield without any complications.
thank Abba that i have been able to grow and learn and see and hear and taste on the world race, and that i have brought those things back with me on the life race.
thank Abba that i have so much more clothing, food, writing utensils, books, shows, wifi, that i have never really appreciated until i got off the world ra ce.
thank Abba that wifi is still working and that humanity can bounce back from a disease of this size. after all, humanity’s gotten through the bubonic plague in 1720, the cholera epidemic in 1820, the 1920 Spanish flu pandemic, and humanity will get through the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 too.
^^^
so, in summary: i wanted to stay on the race for the full nine months, but Abba had different plans in store for the world race this year. i am so utterly grateful for these last six and a half months of being in thailand, malaysia, india, and costa rica. i am so utterly happy for the community that i was able to be a part of. and i am ecstatic to go to college and out into the world and spread Abba’s kindness and what He’s doing in me.
in reference to the song that i referenced in my title, i found out when i was on the race, that everything truly is better when i’m with Abba. the world IS a better place since Jesus came along, and died for my sins. if he hadn’t done that for me, and for all of us, i don’t know what life would be like now.
Please pray for my family that no one gets sick from coronavirus, and that Abba helps keep all of our spirits up.
Constantly in a state of flux, Cheyenne
