I know I already wrote a blog about Training Camp, but I wrote it while I had a fever and didn’t feel like I said everything I wanted to.
So I went to Training Camp not expected anything, as I said before. God showed up in so many ways it was hard to describe. He wrapped his arms around me and allowed me to cry into his shoulder over hurts from my past that I haven’t been able to face before. He allowed me to open up my heart and mind to see him in a new light. He opened his arms and said “Daughter, I have great plans for you. I have a wonderful life for you, and I am so proud of who you are. I will use you this year, all you need to do is trust me.” Wow! What a promise to get!
I’ve believed the lies my whole life from strangers, family, and friends a like, that I am too much, my personality is too loud, my dreams and goals are not realistic and unattainable. I’ve heard lies about who I believed I was. I love to sing and play music, but I felt like I couldn’t all my life because my voice wasn’t perfect enough. I am loud, and enthusiastic and energetic about everything! I am positive and happy, but I was told that I was TOO loud, TOO enthusiastic, TOO energetic, and my positivity was naive and unrealistic! Because I had acne, and I didn’t look like a model, and because I never had a boyfriend, I believed the lie that I was ugly, and wasn’t as good as those other girls!
Those lies defined who I was, even after I believed that I was free from them, I felt the weight of them, and I felt the need to hide my fire for God because it wasn’t what everyone would want! How foolish was I? I am a child of God! I am his MASTERPIECE!! I will define myself by HIM and HIM alone! This week I watched the chains of the lies fall away! God broke through me! He broke down the barriers and he used complete strangers to reveal to me who I was!
These strangers told me that I was beautiful! They told me that my enthusiasm, my energy, my smile, my laughter, my positivity, my loud personality they were all a gift of God! These strangers told me that God told them to tell me that God loves every part of me that he created!! These strangers prayed over me, prayed with me, they rejoiced with me, they cried with me, they encouraged me, they uplifted me. These strangers, in a manner of days, became my family! We slept in the same tent, we crammed into a bus filled with too many people and we survived! We stank, we didn’t shower, we slept in the same clothes for days, we went without coffee for days! We experienced disappointment, we experienced joy! We held each other up when we fell down, we gave everything up to God! We called each other brother and sister! We came together and became one!
I went to Training Camp expecting to learn about the World Race! But what I learned instead was that God cannot be put inside a box, that he is wide, and big, and has His own limits! I went to Training Camp to meet new friends, I never expected to find a family! Thank you God for all you are, for all you do! I am so excited to see what He has in store for this next year!
