tomorrow’s the day!!! i finally am getting to jump on yet another plane to head to georgia for training—and then onward to a new place, that will soon surely capture my heart. here are some pre-trip thoughts i’ve been processing.
here i am a whole year and some days later from returning home from the world race, and i’m still processing what i just did. how i am where i am today. where my feet will fall next? etc.
—a big fear of mine prior to leaving the race wasn’t necessarily leaving home for nine months, but that things would be completely different when i came home. would my friends still be my friends? would my family get use to doing life without me? would my role in my every day life change completely? will everyone forget me? yeah, i was scared of that. and honestly, i can say—a lot changed. home felt weird. home was home. familiar still, yet also so foreign. lonely in a way, yet full of people i love. strange.
coming home, felt like when you’re little and you go to slip on your favoriteeee pair of shoes; only to realize your toes are crammed to the front completely and you are having to squeeze with all your might to fit into them. coming home, i felt like i didn’t fit anymore. my friends still loved me, but they had become accustomed to everyday life without me. not to mention, they changed too, naturally. my friends had either just finished their first year of college, graduated, or were hundreds of miles away. my family—had not seen me for a whole nine months. would they see the way i had grown? would they be proud of me? happy to see me? all questions that rang on and on in my head. i can say today, that i believe my family see’s the growth i experienced, and they each love me well. however, it was a journey for them to all understand each way i had grown, and it was a journey for me to be able to communicate those things to them. but regardless, a lot changed.
when i left for the race, i gave everything up. i asked Jesus to take it all. i counted it all as loss. i didn’t look back. i just went! today, He is still teaching me just about what change is for. how seasons come and go. their purposes. etc. tonight i got to talk to my mom for a long couple hours & process, cry, and love with her about my heart and aches i feel etc etc. aches i’ve felt of people who have come and gone, aches i feel from hurt, etc. she knows me well, and especially knows i don’t necessarily like change, especially when it means i lose people; whatever that may look like. but, she said to me, “people will come and go in each season. people who you need and are suppose to be in your life aren’t going to always be there, but they will be there when they’re suppose to be.” (verbatim) upon finishing this conversation, i went upstairs to pack for swaziland, as i again, leave tomorrow. and i began to process just what she said. how beautiful seasons are, as are the people in each one, as they come and go. it grew in me a spirit of thankfulness.
now, as i began to leave home once again, i think to myself—each person in this season has played a role in my life somehow. i’m thankful. i’m so full. i’m leaving knowing that my world may be different when i come back, but as before, i count it all as loss, this time i just am prepared for what i’m getting myself into.
pray for me, as i find my feet in africa once again.
peace! leave me some love in the comments!
-log
