I have collected a piece of fabric from the country I’m in every month on the race. Each piece of fabric tells a story and serves as a reminder of what that country held for me.
From Peru, I have a small woolen tapestry. It’s scratchy and yet its still beautiful. Its a great representation of the start of my race. Though I started off in the hospital, I learned so much about surrendering my family to the lord and not feeling responsible for things I don’t have control over.
In Greece, I collected two pieces of fabric. The first is off-white linen cloth with a simple olive branch embroidered on the corner. The second is a tattered piece of ripped jean I picked up off the beach on Lesvos. They represent the two worlds I lived in while in Greece-the serene life in the most beautiful place I’ve ever been and the almost tangible pain expressed in the refugee camps. In that place, I had to surrender all of the pain and the hurt that the refugees showed me exists in the world and rest in the peace that I serve a God that in the good in the world.
During Debrief in Nepal, I was souvenir shopping for a close friend when I found a handmade blue and white pillowcase that became my fabric square for that month. Nepal was by far the hardest month on my race. My mind was a tangled mess of lies I’ve believed about myself for far too long and my heart was not in a place to love people well. But at the end of the month, God broke me hard on a mountain top (literally) and showed me that he wasn’t leaving. He wasn’t giving up on me. He chose me and he loved me. I left Nepal changed and finally ready to surrender my own heart to the father.
In India, my fabric is from a corner of my green sari that was extra. In India, I surrendered my relationship with my best friend to the Lord. I gave it to him and finally started to let him lead me in that friendship.
Now we’re at the end of the race and here in Cambodia, my piece of fabric is part of tee shirt we found while cleaning out a storage room at our ministry site. (You can see it as the summary photo of this blog.) The rest of the shirt was stained and unusable but this piece was able to be salvaged. It says “to just live is not enough.”
I can not think of a better way to end my quilt then a reminder that just going through the motions is not what the Lord intended for me. To just live and not remember how the lord as changed me over this year is not enough. To not keep laying my belongings, my hopes and worries, my family and their health, and my own future would be a disservice to myself, my supporters who got me here, to my family who put up with me and most of all to my God who will never leave me.
And that is why during LDW in Bangkok, Thailand I decided to use personal money I had saved while working before the race to get a tattoo on my right bicep. Usually I use this personal money to go someplace special or buy a special gift for someone at home but instead I decided to make a physical change to my body that could be a reflection of the inner change I’ve experienced and a reminder to continue surrendering my body, soul, and mind to the Lord.
My tattoo shows five trees and the word surrender. The trees represent my family and the word surrender is a word that represents my race. It has been spoken over my journey over and over and over again. The trees and word were both drawn/hand-lettered by teammates. It is truly special and will always be there to remind me of how much I’ve changed, how much I’m loved, and how much my heavenly father wants a relationship with me.
