Coming Home: How the World Race Changed my Life

Recently, I have been grappling at the idea of going home in a week. My thoughts and emotions feel like a pot of spaghetti in my brain that I simply cannot find the start and end to. Putting those thoughts and emotions into words feels like a roadblock that I can simply not get through. 

I am guilty of trying to squeeze and push my experiences into my human box of understanding, if I can just make everything make sense, if I can just force the unexplainable to come full circle, I will have peace. The World Race has challenged me to let go of my need to understand and the Father has begun to teach me how to simply abide in the intangible. 

So, in the midst of my grappling, squeezing and pushing to force the last nine months of my life into a 500 word blog, I thought I’d ask the Father how He wants me to see this past season of my life.

And He showed me.

I wish I could squish my experience on the World Race into a tangible formula but unfortunately He showed me something much better and my mindset of conquest was shattered into a million pieces as He showed me His heart. 

He showed me the past nine months as quite the opposite of a race but rather a path, winding in all its diversity and rocky in all of its roadblocks of trials. A path of triumph, a path of heartache, a path of friendship and community, a path of seeking, a path of resting, a path of abiding. 

Whatever the path had to hold, it was heading in one direction; home. 

Home as in the heart of the Father. 

He showed me the summary of this abundant collection of moments labeled the World Race and it was all just me coming home. With each step I stumbled closer to His heart and with wobbly legs I learned how to walk into the Kingdom of God. 

With each late night of playing card games and laughing for hours I stepped closer to His heart of joy and celebration. With every hard conversation with Jesus and worship nights where I all I could do was lay on my face and sob, He was beckoning me farther to His home of humility. With every heart wrenching goodbye where the final look in their eyes tore away a chunk of my heart, I was running closer to His heart of sensitivity. With every eight hour work day on a sunny roof of hard manual labor, I was inching closer to His heart of perseverance. With every belly laugh and inside joke exchanged between my squamates and I, I was falling closer to His heart of community and fellowship. 

How beautiful is it that I get to walk in a constant posture of praise because everything I experience and every step I take is simply a step closer home. 

I realized that my loss for words were, again, a product of the mentality of striving. I was trying to explain the race in terms of knowledge I had obtained and experiences I had gained.

Both of those things I have a new plethora of, however, in retrospect, my vision of the race is not a only a bullet point list of lessons learned and new foods tried, but it is a masterpiece of stumbling closer and closer to the love that the Father has been so anxiously awaiting me to find. I have been switching my perspective from obtaining knowledge to understanding His heart, and through that understanding, coming home. 

From the day that I stepped onto the AIM campus in the heat of Georgia summer where I experienced humidity and looking my fears in the face for the first time to sitting on a twin bed with three of my best friends, all attempting to put words to the depth of love and life lived. All of it was Him.

All the days where exhaustion yanked at my ankles and I felt like I didn’t want to do it anymore. All the days were heartache and tears where the only thing my soul could utter. All the days where smiling and laughing simply wasn’t enough to convey how much joy resided in my spirit. All the hours spent at the feet of Jesus, just chatting with my Maker. It was all Him and it was all just Him leading me farther home.

The beautiful truth is that I am still coming home, and won’t truly be there until the day that Jesus decides it’s time for us to spend eternity together. I don’t have to close this chapter with the weight of believing that this was the best season of my life because I know that it is merely the beginning. When I am living a life that is continually walking home, hand and hand with the Father, I am guaranteed one thing, to grow in my understanding of His heart. And man, when I am constantly learning and experiencing more of His heart, I am living a pretty sweet life. 

Walking home is a privilege when the path I am following gets closer and closer to the love of the Father. 

…

It’s been an honor to share a glimpse of those experiences with you and it’s been a blessing that you have walked alongside me in those collections of divine moments. This blog has been a beautiful platform to vomit the array of my brain into words and to share the love and beauty of Jesus through it all. A simple thank you falls incredibly short but nonetheless, thank you readers 🙂 You have been a safe place to express my love. 

Well, I’ll be headed on my way home. If I don’t see you along the way, see you when I get home 🙂

– Elina