Oh, Training Camp.
I look back now and picture myself groggily stepping off of the Adventures In Missions Shuttle Bus that delivered us to a 10 day camp. I carried my backpack down the steps and looked out to see dozens upon dozens of anxious looking faces. Some younger, some older, some joining in conversation and others taking a step back in awe of their surroundings.
I remember my first thought being, “What in the heck have I gotten myself into.”
Don’t get me wrong, I was excited. But, I looked at these people and felt so out of place. I immediately thought back to my past.. The depressed me, the drunk me, the me who dug a hole so deep that I thought I could never get out. The me that felt so alone and undeserving of Christ.
I felt so alone.
Each day, though I was tired, smelly, cranky and hungry, I slowly started to grasp what God was trying to do with my heart. I came into this journey focused so much on others.. How I could help them, How they could have a relationship with God, how I could heal them. I was so focused on everyone else that I didn’t take a second to think about myself and my relationship with God.
Let me give you a little insight into my head during the first few days of camp;
How was my relationship with God?
“Good.. I think? I mean.. I talk to him, I pray to him.. that’s a relationship, right?”
What things inside me need to be healed?
“Me? Struggling? Nah. No way. I’m fine.. I think.”
How can I be helped?
“I don’t need help. God will take care of everything.”
I am not kidding when those were the thoughts running through my head. BUT as you all know, God works in mysterious ways and slowly but surely he broke me down, little by little, until I cracked.
My relationship with God was lukewarm. I wasn’t on fire for God, but I wasn’t cold and against God. I was in the middle.. which is the worst thing you could be. I knew God and STILL resisted a healthy relationship with him. I had hurt inside of me that I refused to deal with and admit to the Lord that I needed help. I was so, so blind.
One night we were in worship.. I closed my eyes, held up my hands and let the music consume me. I said a short prayer, “Lord. I need you. I am here. I am listening. Fill me, Father. Please, I need you. I cannot do this alone. Show me a sign!”
And what-do-ya-know.. God showed me a sign.
I had been so consumed with my past, my mistakes and my failures.. I was hurting without knowing the extent of my hurt.
A song came on and one of the verses repeated the phrase, “I am a new creation.”
And it hit me. It hit me hard.
I am not who I’ve been. I will never be who I was. In Christ I AM DESERVING.
I am a new creation.
I AM a new creation.
I AM A NEW CREATION.
God spoke to me that night in a way that I’ve never heard him before. For years I have hidden behind my doubts, self-hatred and shame.
That night during worship it finally clicked for me.
I had been running FROM God instead of TO God. I treated God as if he was a visitor when he had been there all along! Dwelling inside of me, waiting patiently for his daughter to open her eyes.
My eyes are open, Lord. I see you.
You are not a visitor. You are home. You are MY home.
In that moment I felt my old heart, the heart plagued by Satan, become pure.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
I have never felt as light as I do know. physically and mentally. It’s as if that night I walked out of worship with the huge weight on my shoulders removed.
No, I was not miraculously healed of all of my struggles.
BUT I finally knew how to deal with them.
Pain can connect us to the Lord like no other force can do, all we have to do is stop running FROM God and run TO him.
Psalm 34:18 “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
I was broken and am now made whole.
I am a new creation.
I spent 23 years blind and it took 10 days for me to finally see.
Believe me, my sight has never been so clear.
“God never allows pain without a purpose in the lives of His children. He never allows Satan, nor circumstances, nor any ill-intending person to afflict us unless He uses that affliction for our good. God never wastes pain. He always causes it to work together for our ultimate good, the good of conforming us more to the likeness of His Son.” ~ Jerry Bridges
