Freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint; the state of NOT being imprisoned or enslaved; liberty, release, deliverance.
Training camp in one word: FREEDOM!
… Free to be me; free to dance and free to sing; free to live and love and free; oh,
free to be me! Truly, it was the most liberating 10 days I think I have ever experienced…
One theory: for the first time in a long time I felt like I could truly be the person the Lord has created me to be, without judgement or condemnation from others perception of me. For a long time, without even really realizing it, I have been a slave to bondage based on how others perceive me… bondage to trying to please everyone; bondage to wanting everyone to like me; bondage to criticism; bondage to insecurity; bondage to being extremely hard on myself. Basically, life sucking anxieties rooted from fear of man.
PS: these are some of the things I put on my log for our surrender walk (stay tuned for that story)!
Honestly, this has been the hardest blog I’ve written thus far. Why? Well, because it’s personal. It’s so easy for me to write about my thoughts and beliefs, but talking about my personal, internal struggles that nobody really knows about puts me in a very vulnerable place. I am proclaiming, though, that God did not give me a spirit of fear, but on the contrary, a spirit of love, power, and a sound mind. The only thing I should be in bondage to is LOVE, and at training camp this bondage to love manifested and the yoke of all these other chains that are just dead weight were lifted!
There is such an anointing on the L squad, and I truly believe it’s because where the Spirit of the Lord is there is FREEDOM, and we allowed the Spirit to have free reign in and through us! The fact is in the natural we shouldn’t work… we come from different backrounds, denominations, age brackets, interests, and so forth. But we did work,amazingly because it was supernaturally divined for such a time as this! There was no fighting, gossip, judgement, or division. We rallied together; we prayed together; we supported and encouraged one another; we fought for each other in those 10 days and sought restoration and healing for our brothers and sisters.
Because of this, I am forever changed!
If I had to go through that very long, dry winter to get me to these brothers and sisters, IT WAS BEYOND WORTH IT!!!
L squad with our coaches, Mike and Patty, and our squad leader, Andi. Missing: squad leader, Shawn, who’s in Spain doing G42 Leadership school!
