I’m Not Who I Once Was

Life is fast, it is short, and it is crazy. One minute I am living a small town in the south of the United States without many plans in life, and the next thing I know I am living in a different foreign country every month trying to fight for people to find hope and salvation. How is that possible? How did I go from being a quiet, passive person who tries to blend into the background into a confident, bold person who seeks out strangers to share the Gospel and pray with them? How did I go from someone that waited on the world to change to someone that makes a change in the world? The only possible answer is for a life transformation that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ the Son of God.

It’s officially over the half way mark of my time on the World Race. I have spent more than half of a year away from home, family, friends, and all comforts. In this time of forsaking all of my own desires for the unknown journey of following Jesus in blind faith I have experienced life in a much fuller extent than what most people do. I have had little to no control of where I sleep, what I eat, and what I do. Yet I have found myself fuller than when I had everything I needed. My life the last 6-7 months has not been my own. Instead, it’s been a life in complete pursuit and surrender to Jesus Christ, which has resulted in even more life than what my life was before. In giving what I have found to be an inch I have received an overflowing abundance more from the Lord. 

To recap, in August 2017, I finally had the revelation that God wanted me to go on the World Race. It took me a while to catch on to the idea, but the Lord was patient to wait for my slow mind to get it. I was applied, accepted, and fundraising by my 22nd birthday that September with no inkling of a clue of what I was signing up for. I had a spark in my heart that was begging to be flamed into something bigger, but I still did not know what I was praying when I asked God to lead me into the life He had for me. For a year my friends and family helped me fundraise for the trip, and my incredibly large goal of $18,100 showed to be nothing for God to provide for. I even broke my right wrist and had surgery 4 days before we had our 10 day boot camp (err, I mean training camp…) in June, 2018. Yet, the Lord healed me 3x faster than what my doctor and physical therapist thought I would despite my participation in camping and exercising at training camp. God walked me through the most physically and spiritually difficult challenge of my life at training camp. 

Then the big launch day came August, 2018. I left for my first out of state mission trip with 32 strangers that I only met at our June training camp 6 weeks before. Looking back, I can remember the many ups and downs of my anxiety over the year of preparing for this journey of a lifetime. However, I also remember that the moment I settled into my room with 10+ other girls in the Dominican Republic and knew that there was no where else I was supposed to be. Since day one this trip has grinding down everything I have ever known and has built up a stronghold that the Lord created me to originally be.

The life lessons are countless, and the things I’ve experienced are indescribable. It’s why writing a blog consistently has been so hard. How do you share the indescribably good things God is doing to people when you can barely wrap your own mind around it? I’ve seen and have personally experienced physical healing through prayer, I’ve heard the sweet voice of God as He daily leads our squad to do His work, I’ve helped lead people in salvation prayers, I’ve preached and taught what it means to truly follow Jesus, and I’ve been a mold-able vessel that has done a variety of work to built relationships with people around the world. (I am not saying any of this as a brag so please don’t read it as such, but man, God has done some mind blowing things that I can’t keep to myself. I’ve only been bless to witness and participate in a beautiful partnership with Him.)

My point in sharing all of this is to first, express why I have had a hard time keeping up on my blog. I just don’t know how to keep up with the unbelievable amount of good things God is doing. I will try to work on blogging more, but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be to write about the race. Secondly, to express how much this race has forever changed my life. I don’t even know where to begin with the things that I have learned. The Lord continues to humbly teach me how much I’ve lived life with putting Him in a box. Before the race I had so little trust, but now I live each day with less clue of what I’m going to do and greater desire to hear what He has planned for the day. I kid you not, 99% of the time I get on a bus on this race and I have no clue where we are going. (And I’m a squad leader! Haha.) Each time we leave to go anywhere though, I have a great assurance that I will be where I am supposed to be, and each time I am. 

The biggest lesson I have learned is that “God is good” is an understatement, yet there is no other description to properly express just how good He is. When you expect God to be God your whole life changes. When you live life with the attitude of living out of abundance no matter what your financial state or physical state is you will never have a worry or be without. The Father’s love is so powerful that it changes EVERYTHING. When I think back to before the race and I can’t help but celebrate the deliverance that the Lord has done in me. God is so astonishingly, undeniably, indescribably good.