A while back, my sister-in-law Lyndsay asked me what the hardest part about prepping for The World Race has been. I gave her a generic answer about having to move out of my apartment and not having my personal space. But as I thought about it more, I realized the most difficult part has been this battle I’ve had with God and what his plans are for me. If I sat here and told you that I’m 100 percent excited, 100 percent of the time, I’d be a 100 percent liar. There are MANY days that I think, “I just want my life back. It was so much easier.”
After the initial excitement wore off, I’ve found that a lot of my days are spent battling with going with what’s easy and going with what God wants from me. My theme song for this time has definitely been Jars of Clay’s “Two Hands.” This is what it says:
I’ve been living out of sanity
I’ve been splitting hairs and blurring lines
I am a house that is divided
In my heart and in my mind
I’ve been splitting hairs and blurring lines
I am a house that is divided
In my heart and in my mind
I use one hand to pull you closer
The other to push you away
If I had two hands doing the same thing
Lifted high, lifted high
I have a broken disposition
I’m a liar who thirsts for the truth
And while I ache for faith to hold me
I need to feel the scars and see the proof
And if we just keep digging we can reach the foundation
Of our souls
And if we just keep cutting all the chains from our hearts
We’ll lose control
And it feels like giving in
It feels like starting over
It feels like waking up, and you know it’s coming
It feels like a brand new day
This battle I’m fighting with giving in to what God wants for me reminds me of the battle between the Israelites and Amalekites in Exodus 17:8-15. As long as Moses kept his hands up the Israelites were winning, but as soon as he put them down the Amalekites started winning. Eventually Moses needed help. So what happened? “Aaron and Hur held his hands up-one on one side, one on the other-so that his hands remained steady till sunset.”
I need help keeping my hands up.
Since the day I was accepted, and especially after training camp, there have been struggles like never before. I even got super sick yesterday, the day I planned to write this blog. There are tons of false messages coming my way, whether they tell me I’m not good enough for this, I’m not prepared enough or the one that’s easy to fall for: that life as I knew it before is SO MUCH EASIER (and that easier = better.) At camp, one of the things I promised I would not let get to me was the worry of my financial situation. I still need quite a bit of money in order to be able to leave in August and my account has not made any progress in more than a month. But I am not worried because I know God is one who provides, whether by giving me more than 5,000 people who donate $1 or one person who will donate the remainder of what is needed. I hope if you’re reading this you’ll consider supporting me in this battle.
Whether you give $1 or $10,000, your support holds my hands up a little higher. And with your support, I know together we can win the battle and I will be on that plane to Ireland on Aug. 9.
