The Race is an amazing opportunity to travel, do missions, and experience the world authentically. It is a time of growth, challenges, and adventure. Most days are filled with laughter and joy, but some are more difficult. I am so happy and grateful to be on the World Race. I’ve been enjoying traveling and I’m growing a lot, but there are some things that I wish I had more fully anticipated before leaving. In NO way do I mean to complain by writing this. All the struggles I am experiencing stretch me more and have been challenging me to grow in good ways. However, I wish I could have prepared myself better before leaving, and here are a few of the things I wish I had known…
The Race is 11 months – almost a year. Not a long time in comparison to the span of a lifetime, but somehow 11 months is long enough to make a person miss home – and a lot of major events taking place in the lives of those one loves. This year, I have already had to watch from afar as my little sister got married, my best friends started new relationships, my family struggled through different seasons, etc. In the next 7 months, I will miss more weddings, funerals, births, graduations, and other major life events happening to my friends and family. While I am in a place that I love, and 100% want to be, I find my heart longing to be in two places at once. Being present in the place that I am is much harder than I expected.
However, through all of this, I am learning to let go of the control that I wish I could have. I am learning to trust God to take care of the people who I love and bring hope through the circumstances I wish I had the power to change. I am learning to let go of the things I hold on to so tightly, and to trust Him to take care of it all.
Being present is something with which I’ve always struggled. A year ago, I was dissatisfied with a lot of things – my job, my location, some of my relationships – and I wanted a change. I thought that by making some sort of big change, that then I would be happy.
However, as I made a big change, and am now on the other side of the world, I am still not satisfied. I see life moving on without me back home, and wish I could be there too. I think that God created us to want more – to always be in search of greater things – so that we would continually seek after Him. My struggle to be satisfied with the present has pushed me to seek Him more, and through the Race, I am learning to be satisfied.
