I let go of my family. Ok. I let go of my friends, my job, and my church back home. Ok. Alright, now I’m good for 11 months, right? Wrong. God definitely had a different plan for me…a continuous lesson of letting go…of anything and everything that could possibly get between my relationship with Him. “Will you let go of everything else…and cling to Me?” He is asking me like a gentleman. He is not demanding me, but asking for my attention.
One night, I was daydreaming for the point of daydreaming and the Lord wanted me to stop. I said, “Why?” He responded to me and said something I will never forget. It rings in my ear now and I know I will hear it the rest of the race and possibly the rest of my life.
“I love you and I want all of you.”
I stopped daydreaming about pointless things and instead started thinking about the Lord and who He is. He is not just someone to daydream about, but the only One truly worth daydreaming about. I’m not worthy of it, but He actually daydreams about me and you! Did you know that? Psalm 139:17 says:
“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.”
I’m learning to have this infinitely deeper relationship with Christ and to be sensitive to what He is saying to me in the moment.
I brought a few things with me that mean the world to me. I spent hours upon hours staying up until 3 am each night for almost a week before launch making a photo book of my life before the race to take with me, “My Story.” I am showing this book to the people that I meet so they can have an idea of who I am and where I come from. I love this book. I also brought a few mementos like necklaces and bracelets that remind me of home and remind me of my relationship with the Lord…all things He wants me to let go of in one way or another. This is a choice I am making to cling to Christ and Christ alone and to let go of the security I have had in things for the past several years. I am leaving at least a page of my book in each country. I actually left two pages of “My Story” in Peru. The book is not actually my family, not actually my church, not actually my friends. It is just paper and it is ok to let go of it.
“Really? You want to give a page to me?” Maria said right before we looked through My Story together and she picked out the page she wanted to keep. “Of course, I want you to have something to remember me by,” I said to her. She chose a page that had a picture of me painting so she could always remember how she knew me, the artist who poured out my heart onto their walls. I love my new family in Peru. What better way to tell them that I love them than to leave a part of my heart with them? I will not hold back. I will love completely. I will put my whole heart out there every month…because THEY are worth it.
I will love, but I will also LET GO. I will let go of My Story. I will let go of my mementos. I will love and let go of each new family I meet in these 11 countries. Bring on the heartbreak… because they deserve ALL of me.
