The months leading up to the race were hard for me. My world was being flipped upside down and there was nothing I could do about it. My parents got divorced, which led to the home I grew up in being sold. On top of moving out of my apartment for the race and selling most of my things, I had to go through everything I had ever owned to move out of my childhood home. This was no easy task, seeing as I apparently never threw anything away that had the least bit of sentimental value. It broke my heart to walk out of that house for the last time, and I left for the race with the mind set that I didn’t really have a home to return to after the race.
The good news is God has really opened up my heart and mind these past few months by redefining how I view home. At the end of my work days on the race, I found myself saying that I was heading home for the day. Home has been on multiple continents now. It has been on the floor of a church, a tent, a house, and a motel. I’ve felt at home sleeping on the floor, covered in dirt, without running water, and with cockroaches and rats roaming in my room. If you had told me a year ago that I would call these places home, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. I had always associated home with one house and with having physical comforts.
Saying yes to having Jesus in my life has taken me around the world and shown me that home isn’t just a house I grew up in. It doesn’t have to be somewhere that I’m physically comfortable. It’s where the people I love are, and where people I can give love to are. Every day my heart allows more people into it causing the list of people I love to continue to grow, and because of this, I’ve been able to feel at home in so many places. It has been challenging at times, but I’ve realized that the more I let God fill me up with love, the more love I have to give to those in the cities, villages, and towns that I’m living in. It makes it hard to leave each month, but I’m so thankful that He has shown me that as long as I have Him, He can make any place feel like home.
