There is no delicate way to put this. I’m ignoring God. It started at Final Debrief in Beijing. I think I read my Bible once the entire time. I’m not mad at God. I’m not feeling bitter or resentful that the Race has ended and it’s time to go home. I’m just ignoring Him.
The ignoring began subtly, and by the time I realized I was shutting God out, I didn’t want to stop. You see, when you talk to God, when you listen to Him and share your life with Him and follow His direction, you have to face what is going on around you. You have to be honest with Him and yourself that life is permanently changing and you don’t know how to handle it. You have to be prepared for waves of joy and pain and happiness and sorrow. You have to process and talk about things and deal with what’s going on.
When you ignore God, you can compartmentalize your life into human-size manageable tasks. I didn’t want to focus on this giant life change, so instead I focused on things like getting all my souvenirs from the market and reenacting scenes from Mulan on the Great Wall. And even though I’ve only been home for about 15 hours, I’ve already found myself ignoring Him again. I can feel the prompting to sit down with Him and rest, but instead I’m focusing on my human-size tasks. This time it’s washing all my clothes from the Race and figuring out which box my mom packed my Ray Bans in..
But I’m not a fool. I know that ignoring God can only go so long before it completely blows up in my face. Because in order to ignore God, you have to ignore your emotions and reality. Because if you truly feel your emotions or actually look at the reality of your life, you will realize that the majority of it cannot be placed into human-size tasks. Life in itself is a God-size task.
Life was designed to be walked through with God. All of the valleys, the mountaintops, the wide open spaces of beauty, and the shadowy crags of despair hold a path just wide enough for the two of us to walk together.
So I’m going to stop ignoring Him right now. I’m going to put down all my busywork and allow myself to feel and to see:
The indescribable pain of leaving my Race family: those I love and who truly understand me.
The shock of American culture and bewilderment of this life change.
The abounding joy and real frustrations of being with my family again.
The weirdness of calling a house I have never lived in my home.
The confusion of trying to reconcile the changes of my life with the old normality of my surroundings.
The prospect of staring into the masked face of the future and not panicking.
I need help in this. God is with me and for me, but one thing I learned from the Race is that He designed community for a reason. I want to talk and process with you, my friends and family. I need you to rally around me and extend grace and patience to me as I transition into this new chapter of life.
I’m scared. I’m excited. I’m not ignoring Him any longer.
