May 5, 2007

Dear Friends,

Down an unknown road
To embrace my fate
Though that road may wander
It will lead me to you.
And a thousand years
Would be worth the wait
It might take a lifetime
But somehow I’ll make it through!
And I won’t look back
I can go the distance
And I’ll stay on track
No, I won’t accept defeat
It’s an uphill slope
But I won’t lose hope
Til I go the distance
And my journey is complete.
- second verse of “Go the Distance” by Micheal Bolton.

I rediscovered this song during the past few weeks, as I’ve frantically been trying to get caught up with my grading and lesson planning. During the May Day holiday, I even took papers with me on my trip to Hezuo and Xiahe to grade. I was running around like the proverbial gerbil on its wheel and feeling drained. However, while my four-day vacation was restful and did wonders for my stress level, another realization had been slowly crystallizing before, during, and after the holiday that has proved even more useful than the vacation itself.

Many times in my life, I have asked God for my next lightning bolt, the next flash of divine wisdom. I’m an impatient person, and I always want my next “mountaintop experience.” However, recently the verse from Philippians 3 has been recurring to me: “Not that I have already obtained this [resurrection], or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own” (emphasis mine).

As a former cross-country runner, I am familiar with running long miles in practices, and the mental discipline it take to keep your focus throughout a long race. You can’t sprint a two- or three-mile race; you have to keep pressing on, focus, and remember your goal in order to finish well.

This mentality was recently given a new meaning when viewed through the lens of my faith. I wanted more “mountaintop experiences,” more concrete milestones, more affirmations that my teaching was having a positive impact on my students. I was getting discouraged because I wasn’t receiving as many “boosts” as I felt I needed. I was beginning to question my purpose here again.

I was forgetting that my faith life was not supposed to be an endless set of mountaintops. My job was to keep pressing on, even when the day-to-day experiences got a little stressful, or even monotonous. Like the song, my faith journey, and my work in China, “is an uphill slope, but I won’t lose hope.” Yes, “it might take a lifetime,” and it should.

As Richard Bach said “Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.” As I am only 25, it is sometimes easy to forget that there are potentially another 50 years ahead of me, if I am lucky. There are inevitably going to be many days that qualify as “ordinary” rather than “extraordinary.” The important thing to remember as I walk along the path of my life throughout my time in China and beyond is to continue to press on. That I’m not particularly inspired each day is no indication that God is no longer present in my work here. Can I trust enough to keep working at my goal, every day of my life, even when I don’t feel God’s presence? Will my faith be strong enough to keep me from losing hope, even when the uphill slope seems endless? My prayer for each of you reading this is that wherever you are on life’s journey, that the answers are a resounding “Yes.” May we all “go the distance” until our journeys are complete.

Rachel

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 244