Airplanes, the symbol that stands

If you asked me six years ago how I was getting through my hardest times of high school,

I would tell you I was watching airplanes

 

At one point, being an athlete was the main identity I knew. Yet, smothered with emptiness and unhappiness, I quit soccer in the middle of season, 8^th grade.

I felt like a failure. I still have a journal entry where in all caps I went on and on in self-hatred about how “I quit everything.” The pages probably still wrinkled and the ink water stained by my tears that fell.

Fast forward to Sophomore year, I was drained by the hallways of high school and family members going through hard things and losing half my friends.

My mom and I thought it’d be good for me to do some other sport, so I tried track.

As I was training for track, I discovered a pathway behind my house. I strayed off that pathway and found a rock to climb.

I quit track after two days.

Yet, I continued hiking to that rock after school. Let me just say that rock became my Rock and my refreshing escape.

*this is what I am referring to in that blog where I share about how my Buddhist friend and I related on how nature was an escape for us during our hardest times

After school, I journeyed alone to my place in the forest, even took friends to my beloved place at times. I brought a snack, my journal, my Bible, and a prayerful heart. It was the beginning of my digging into the Word and authentic discipleship.

I stared up at the circle formed by the trees framing the sky.

I watched airplanes go by.

I didn’t understand what it meant for God to speak to me back then. I look back now and see that He was.

He told me

though it is hard, everything your experiencing is temporary. This too shall pass. Like those people in the airplanes, I am taking you somewhere so much better.

 

From then on, every time I saw an airplane and its long jet stream follow, I saw hope: hope in what is not yet seen or experienced in my current circumstances.

 

Watching airplanes gave me so much hope that I even painted it that year…

I cannot tell you how many times I have gone back to that rock and sat dumbfounded by where God has taken me and what God has done in me since.

For instance, the end of last summer, I went there to get clarity on such a difficult decision. I left the rock that day with the clarity I came for: surrender your greatest desire for the sake of following God with full devotion.

But, what I received even more was gratitude…

I could not believe where college had brought me and that I was leaving for the World Race soon. I could not believe that the worldly things that I held so tightly to had lost their grip on me. I could not believe that my journals that once said empty began to say FULL all over them. I could not believe the confidence and love for myself and purpose and freedom I had gained.

 

 

So, what’s next?!

Right now, I sit on an airplane heading home from 2 ½ months in Asia, 8 ½ months earlier than I thought.

I spent years looking forward to this dream, forsaking all for a year. I gave up studying abroad in Ireland and worked hard to graduate early for this. For a long time, I didn’t see further than the Race. The Race was the ultimate dream for me.

I could not have for a second foreseen leaving the field this early due to a worldwide pandemic.

This dream I clung to has slipped out of my hands, out of my control.

The past week is a blur that’s going to take me all of two weeks of quarantine to process.

I am now on my final flight home.

It is going to be a lot of mourning and processing for me. Yet, the whole world is facing situations like this and worse than this. I am going back to a different America as my mom keeps saying.

 

But can I tell you something?

I have joy and peace.

Remember how one of my takeaways from last month in Malaysia was on future dreams? Remember how I said it was refreshing to have so many dreams pop into my head?

My dream especially for spending a summer sharing the Gospel and soaking in the desert canyons of Lake Powell was burning on my heart so badly. I almost wished I could go this summer rather than wait until the end of the Race. No lie.

Come to think of it, in a difficult headspace, one golden hour summers ago, I was floating in the waters of Powell. I had a wonderous moment gazing at an airplane fly by that spoke to me: I am taking you somewhere (boy, I had no idea back then the cool places God would take me)

Come to think of it, that Sabbath day where Hannah was encouraging me about this dream, I remember watching an airplane fly. I thought about the symbol it was to me. I thought about how He was faithful to bring me all the way to Malaysia to serve; He will continue take me from glory to glory as I give my life away to Him (2 Cor 3:18).

 

During the earth-shaking church services last month, I was so connected to the Spirit and speaking rapidly in tongues.

When I’m in that place, the clutter and fear of my mind dissipates to make way for God’s voice.

Working for Compassion International has been on my mind for a while now. On the field, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Therefore, one church service last month, I decided to ask God what he thought about that. Do you want me to email Compassion and share my interest? He said go for it.

 

Then, on my birthday at mini-debrief I was facing the mental attack of the enemy. For the first time, I wished I could be home. This is a month after having the most amazing month of my life in Indonesia where I literally wanted to stay in Indonesia for the whole year, or even longer.

 

The reality is God prepared me for this.

Maybe He gave me these feelings and dreams that I could have peace and joy about going home. Or maybe these dreams are meant to happen soon.

Unlike most of my fellow racers, there is a large part of my heart that doesn’t know, if I have the chance, if finishing my 11 months is what God has for me anymore. 

Mic drop

God has planted so many seeds of excitement for going back home. Strangely and suddenly, I crave to work hard using my giftings, my degree, and my ministry experience.

I crave routine, Colorado, to see the many milestones happening for my wonderful family this year, and to be heavily involved at the local church.

I crave the most to invest and sew into one area for a long-term period, rather than continue changing back and forth between places, people, and experiences like I have been for years.

I still crave ministry, international missions, adventure, serving the least of these (from prisoners, to underprivileged communities, to children in poverty), and Kingdom family. I just don’t know if I will do all this in the context of the World Race anymore.

Then again, a couple days after writing this I had visions of children in Africa and feel more open to going back on the field…

 

The reality is God did choose me for such as a time as this, knowing I’d be sent home on my third month. He knew that the States, currently facing panic, needed a non-anxious, ON FIRE FOR CHRIST presence taking back the sort of authority and faith from a peacemaker for gangsters, previous Muslim women who are facing exclusion for their fire for Christ, Chinese Malay Christians who spend 7 hours praying and fasting each Wednesday, and Thai church members breaking strongholds in a country that is 95% Buddhist.

I am bringing back to a United States the magnificent things God has done in me and through me. The amount of faith and authority I now walk in because of the Race and my Racer community blows my mind.

The amount of lives touched from journeying with Muslims on their path to Christ, to praying over prostitutes and pimps, to becoming like a daughter to a random Chinese Malay Buddhist family, to sharing my testimony with many-like that tourist from New Zealand, to serving many-like those orphans or PT’s mom, to going deeper with God than I could ever imagine, to seeing my friends fall out in the Spirit, to befriending the most devoted Christ followers I’ve ever seen, to facing the hardest living conditions I’ve faced, to bringing His presence and love everywhere I went, to overcoming the enemy in my mind and coming out on the other side (with anointment, the oil of joy, and authority), to facing my blind spots, to finding Kingdom family that lives and believes in miracles like the early church (to do better works than Jesus himself-John 14), to the amount of people I’ve touched through the passion that flows out in my storytelling, to the fruit I saw pouring out of me before even getting to the field as a direct result of my “yes” to the Race (Before leaving, I told people my race was already worth it – it made me start living like I was already on the field on my campus and in my fundraising).

And there is so much more to share; I haven’t even posted my blog about some of the coolest things that happened in Malaysia yet.

The point is I would not trade my Race experience for the world. He told me when I committed there is no time seeking me that is wasted, and He was so right!

 

And thank you to my supporters who helped make all this happen!

 

Through Christ and through it all, I am a powerful and precious daughter of God and effective minister of the Gospel of Christ that saved me.

I thought track was the next thing for me. I quit after two days. But it was through training for track, that I found the rock that was a pillar to my intimacy with God.

I thought the Race was the only thing for me. I was sent home after two and a half months. But it was through those months and through the testing of my faith as I am sent home, that I found the authority I walk in to bring the Kingdom of God and believe Him for anything.  

It is never what we expect. But God always has something better for us on the other side. 

The hardest things we go through end up being our testament to hope and to God’s glory.

It happens time and time again: I go through something hard (from 8^th grade to that blog) and don’t want talk about it with anyone, yet I end up sharing it with everyone. Why? Because, like Lauren brings up in her blog, this is true…

My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything. – James 1:2-6

 

 

Instead of watching planes in the sky, from the ground, hoping for the next place God will bring me, I type this in a plane, looking down at the ground, joyfully being brought to the next place God is calling me!!!!

 

 

Like this verse Fifina shared in her blog, I cannot plan my future or worry about tomorrow…

you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’ – James 4:13,14

Though immediately after finding out, I had a sense I might not be finishing the race…though I had a peace and an excitement about stepping into all those future dreams God planted last month, I have no idea what is ahead.

I will go back on the Race (be refined by constant community/becoming poor to make others rich/be all things for all people and nations) if He leads me that way again, but I have a ministry field right in front of me (even if its interceding in my room)…

 

I just have to make the decision to follow Him every morning

Seek the Kingdom first

For the first time in my life, I don’t have a plan

I am not afraid

I have Jesus, and that is all I need

This is going to be hard

The entire world is suffering right now

Economies are tanking

So many are afraid

There is no easy answer to any of this

But like the turbulent plane I’m riding in right now, we are headed somewhere

This is temporary; this too shall pass

God’s love for you is eternal, abundant, and unconditional

He knew this would happen

You can trust Him

Through these hard times, He is building character, power, perseverance, and true faith in you

He is a good, good Father who works everything, even the things not of Him, for good

He empathizes, suffers, and walks with you

He will withhold no good thing from you

 

 

I took off on this plane ride thinking I was going to catch up on sleep.

Instead, I wrote the below blurb in my phone notes… and well it led to my taking my computer out to write this blog…. just some of the million thoughts I’ve had the past week.

*I have SO many blog ideas, stay posted. I should have time to write and hear from God now that I’m quarantined and unemployed :0

 

Underneath the clouds it was still dark. The raindrops on my window reflected the plane’s lights. The raindrops began slipping away as we got higher. Through the clouds I squinted my eyes and watched the raindrops like I do with Christmas lights. They twinkled until they dried. Above the clouds it is day and the world is awaking. From a much higher view, I see more clearly. I see patterns in the clouds openings for civilization. The sun still rising as it always has. Though I sit on an empty plane, all I have in me is Hope. Hope today. Hope my friends 

 

That’s it. Hope is not seen. God has a plan for you, if you would only seek His face and pray

 

Much love, grace, and peace, 

A now grateful World Racer named Hannah