On Sunday I graduate high school. What a strange season of life to be in. Every gathering becomes oddly sentimental, and I can’t help but look at anything and everything and wonder if it’s a “last.” While all my friends exclaim, “I’ll only be an hour away!” or “We’ll all get back together during Thanksgiving break!” it’s bizarre and somewhat unsettling to know that I’m leaving for 9 months and not coming home. I have lived counting down and wishing away the days of senior year. I have been thrilled about the future. I can hear myself saying a hundred times, “I’m so ready to be done.” And yet, just like that, I blinked and it was over, and I’ve discovered that human emotions are really weird. While on the surface I am ready, I am cheering, I am running to the finish line, it’s hard to realize how much security I am leaving behind. I am going to 3 foreign countries for 9 months, and underneath my surface level of enthusiasm and zest, I am terrified. I am terrified to know that home will never truly be “home” again, once I have left my heart spread far and wide across the globe. I am terrified of distance from the ones I love. I am terrified that my materialism will overpower my bravery to live simply. I am terrified of hard days when my body is weak or health complications arise. I’m scared, but as my dad said the other day, “At least you can admit it.” So why am I admitting it to all of you? I’m laughing to myself wondering the same thing… “Yes Rebecca, good idea, write a blog post about the negative parts of the race. THAT will really bring in the donations!!”
But before I lose you, give me a chance to turn this around. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “My grace is enough for you, and my power is made perfect in your weakness.” Having so many months of waiting leading up to September can either hurt me or help me. What matters is where my identity lies. I have been so completely consumed by the logistics of the race – what I’m about to do, how I can best prepare, and how I’m going to raise the funds (and these are not bad thoughts to have), but if my identity is placed in my plans and not in my God, then I will undoubtedly bear the burden of a disconnect to passion and joy. My identity is in Christ alone and not in my plans for next year. My prayer lately has been, “Father may I look up.” Instead of looking at what’s on the horizon, I want to look vertically at the Lord himself. A sweet friend of my mom’s wrote me a letter to go along with the money she donated to my trip, and she included a verse that I have read everyday since. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.” Eph. 2:18-19. God’s got incredible things in store! I just have to look up.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me and loved me through this season of beautiful chaos.Thanks to your generosity and kindness I am 50% funded. I am overwhelmed by the Lord’s faithfulness.
