This is a re-blog of one of my favorite blogs from the Race last year! It’s fun to look back at things from last year, knowing what I know now was nowhere in sight then. It’s also really fun, and AMAZING, to focus on how the Lord has grown me and worked in/through me since then.
This blog was written in May of last year:
**The thought process of the girl that left back in January went something like this: “Oh, yay! Panama is our month 5–it’ll be kind of like America, so it’ll be like a little refresher month before the second half of the Race, right!?”
I’m pretty sure the 7-year-old me wouldn’t have approved of that girl.. 7-year-old me knew God gave me a desire for missions in Latin America, and she dreamed of a future me who would let nothing stand in the way of her relationship with God and who would be this amazing missionary woman living a life sold out for Him, somewhere out in the jungle maybe.
When I look in the mirror now, I don’t see that girl from January anymore. And I can’t help but chuckle at her thought process and expectations about what this Race would look like and who she would come out of it as. I’m pretty sure I was nowhere in her expectation radar, but I kind of like this new me and I like who God is continuing to shape me into. And I’d like to think 7-year-old me would approve too.
See, before that girl left in January, she had a pretty selfish motive in going. Yeah, she was super excited about going on this amazing mission! She was excited to follow God through the next 11 months and 11 countries, maybe even roughing it a little. She was excited to finally be able to fulfill the desire of 7-year-old me, and she thought this would fulfill it! But, she was also selfishly dreaming of being able to take her life back over after these 11 months and have a normal life–you know, the life where soon after she comes home, she gets a job, meets the ‘man of her dreams’ and gets married, and even has little kids running around her yard somewhere out in the country because she isn’t a huge fan of big cities..? That desire for marriage and family is what she secretly held as her #1 desire and priority. She took Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”, and read it in a selfish mindset. Part of her thought “Maybe if I can just fulfill that 7-year-old me desire to be a missionary and answer God’s calling me to the Race and enjoy it for a year, then maybe everyone will be satisfied with letting me direct my life for a little bit.”
Now, I look into the mirror and find a stranger, but, at the same time, I feel like I’ve known her forever! She’s not that same girl from January. Her deepest desire is to know God, really know God. Going on the Race didn’t fulfill the desire she has to be a missionary in Latin America. In fact, it did the complete opposite.
And the biggest shock of all–the thing that makes this person I see in the mirror feel like such a stranger–is that her desire to be married and have a family is far surpassed by her desire to live her life as that “amazing missionary woman living a life sold out for Him, somewhere out in the jungle maybe”. If the choice ever comes down to it, she is at a point in her life now where she is so content in God and so confident in His call on her life for missions, that she is more than willing to let go of the possibility of a future of marriage and family to be on the mission field with Him…
I looked a little closer at the person in the mirror. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize it.. Her heart, her passions and desires.. I see 7-year-old me smiling back at me, only she’s about 15 years older..
She is on top of the world! She’s living her dream, following after God. And God is revealing more and more of that dream each day. This Race, that the girl from January wanted to use to ultimately get rid of that desire to live an amazing-missionary-woman-life sold out for Him, God is using to grow into something even more amazing!!**
With love,
Ash
