“All my bags are packed. I’m ready to go. I’m standing here outside your door. I hate to wake you up to say goodbye. “
Goodbyes have never been hard for me. I always know that I will eventually see those people again. It is not that I am heartless or that I don’t care. We all just deal with things differently and goodbyes are something that I have just been good at. That is until now.
On January 14, 2009 The Lord placed a scripture on my heart. Ezekiel 36:24-27
“For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
For those of you who have been following my blogs, that scripture came to me when I was in crunch time to raise the rest of my support to go to Europe. I had prepared myself to go home because I thought that was what the Lord was telling me. However, the support money came in and I thought I had heard in correctly. That is until the past few weeks. I had received news from back home and I had to make a choice: stay on the race or go take care of responsibility. Immediately this scripture came back to mind. The Lord was preparing me for this during my support raising. During that time he was showing me that he is faithful and that I can trust Him.
Recent events have led me to withdrawl from the race. This is an extremely difficult choice for me to make. Decisions that I made 5 years ago are effecting me greatly now. I must take responsibility for my actions. Although I would love to stay, and continue to see God move in my team and the squad firsthand, I know that I must trust that His plans are greater than mine and that I must submit to His will even though it goes against my own wants, desires, and what I think He should want for me.
It is one thing to follow God in obedience when you want what he is asking you to do. It is a completely different thing to step out in obedience when you don’t want to go. This is honestly the hardest decision I have ever made. Fully I believe that if you would ask anyone on the leadership team with me that they would tell you I would be the last person to leave this race. I have come into this race with full faith knowing that the Lord had much to teach me and with the knowledge that I was subconsciously running away from things at home. Now I must face those things.
Let me establish for you that I depart on no ill terms. I am extremely grateful to AIM, the staff, Gary and Lisa, Allison, Jake, the leaders of G-squad and G-squad as a whole. You have all played a part in my development as a member of the Kingdom. My eyes and mouth have been opened and I can’t help, but proclaim the things that I have seen in my 5 months on the field. I can only imagine what would have happened in 11 months, but know that the Lord has asked to come home, “for such a time as this.” The World Race will always be a part of me, for it has propelled me onto something greater. (I just don’t know what that is yet.)
Daily the Lord is teaching me to trust him more. He has shown me that my faith is limitless, but my trust in him could use a little work. The Lord is showing me in these 5 months the vast difference between faith and trust. I am completely trusting him with this. With each obstacle that has come my way, whether it been support raising, family issues, or bad news from home, God continues to show me deeper levels of trusting him. Going home is enabling me to trust him with more than I expected. However, with each thing that has been placed in my path it has been easier each time to surrender it to him.
When we talk about giving up rights and entitlements here on the race, and how we have none, I have never seen the World Race as my entitlement until I had to give it up. It is hard. The race has broken me of a lot of my entitlements, but the greatest one still remains, the Race itself. Just because the money has been raised doesn’t mean that I should get to finish the race. The Lord was showing me how to trust him with and in my finances and now I need to trust him with my life, especially when it is going a different direction than what I had planned. He is proving His faithfulness.
This goodbye is hard. I signed up for 11 months not for 5 months. Obviously the Lord needed me here for only 5 months. I accept that and I am ready for what he has for me back state side. The people are hard to leave. Their fire and passion for the Lord and His Kingdom challenge me daily. They push me beyond what I have ever been pushed before. My iron has been sharpened because of them and it will continue to be sharpened as I join with you in following their blogs for the next 6 months.
You have been a major support to me. That support is just a crucial now that I am leaving behind 49 others that have grown to love deeply. They are family.
Thank you. Thank you, for understanding and continuing to cover me as I depart on March 5th. It is definitely needed.
I will keep you posted and would love to meet up with any or all of you when I arrive back in the states to thank you face to face. Just shoot me an e-mail.
