As many of you know, I have elected to spend the next eleven months serving overseas through the World Race. I will be traveling to 11 countries across Asia over 11 months and serving others through various ministries with the ultimate goal of bringing Christ to those people groups who do not know him. As I have been preparing to leave for Japan in under a week, I have been doing quite a lot of thinking about the people and opportunities that have led me to the path that is now set out before me. As my first blog before leaving, I thought it would be fitting to share some of those thoughts.
I do not tend to be an emotional person. For most of my life I have tried to take a Vulcan approach to emotion, viewing it as hindrance rather than something that creates understanding, sympathy, and kindness towards others. I do not think it is a coincidence that since my faith and relationship with Christ has grown as has my empathy. These last few weeks since graduating and preparing to leave for the next 11 months has been the most emotionally complex time of my life. Most commonly people ask me if I am sad, nervous, excited, etc about leaving. The truth of the matter is that it is something more complicated than just a one word emotion. It is a melting pot of all the emotions mentioned previous plus so much more. It is hard for me to describe and even understand. After spending these last few weeks with countless family and friends from all walks of my life, I’ve settled upon the fact that this emotion stems from a profound feeling of thankfulness for all the people that have touched my life and developed me into the person and man I am today.
I was blessed enough to spend the morning on New Year’s Day with many of my friends that I went to Auburn with. We all knew it was the last time I was going to get to see them before I headed on to Asia, and it was a wonderful gathering of fellowship and laughter. As someone who loathes saying goodbye, I was hoping to slip out while everyone was focused on watching football. Surely enough, before I could get away, my friend Kennon (one the kindest and most Christ centered people I know) got everyone’s and attention and directed us to a room with a chair in the middle where she then led our friends in praying over me, my team, and our mission to bring Christ to the nations. During that time, I felt the tangible presence of our God as much as I have ever in my life. Afterwards I tried to say some words and express my gratitude not only for that day, but of course could hardly get anything out without getting choked up. I settled for going around the room and hugging everyone where memories of years past flooded my mind. I spent the next few hours brooding over the profound thankfulness I have for those friends in my life that have stuck with me through the highs and lows, who have encouraged me to do better and be better, who have sought me out when I was lonely, who have called me out when I was in the wrong, who poured their wisdom into my faith in its infancy, and most importantly challenged me to take my faith into my own hands.
There are so many family members and friends I have made over the years that I wish I could express my gratitude to. I wish I could put every person who has helped me and befriended me over the years into a room and offer a proper thank you. Something I think we do as humans (and which I do far too often) is not realize the magnitude of what friendship means to us until we leave it. My faith has been built up by the resilience of others to pursue me show me what life can be like when in relation with Christ. As I leave for the next 11 months to serve, I want to take these lessons and the legacy that others have instilled in me and put into my service of others the same fervor that so many have put towards me. My prayer as I leave is to not forget the ultimate goal of the next 11 months, that is, to bring the light to the dark through the name of Jesus Christ.
For His glory, not mine,
Parker Graham
