Good goodbyes lead to good hellos.
It’s a mantra I keep repeating to myself before we go through team changes tomorrow. The women I have spent the past four months with are so dear to me that the thought of finishing the race without them is a very gray thought indeed. So what does one do in the face of fear and anxiety? Rejoice! Again I say, rejoice!
God has loved me so well through Team Boulder – he’s given me sisters who have each uniquely taught me what love looks like in true community, and what it looks like to be a Godly woman.
- Angela has taught me how to have joy like a child, how to seek the delight my mind knows to be in the Father’s face, but my heart has a hard time believing. To use my imagination when I read the Bible. To listen with empathy no matter who is speaking, to weep with them in their suffering and laugh with them in their joy. To be excited when the rain falls and to seek the Lord even when I am questioning his very nature.
- Paige has taught me to celebrate the moment, the day, and the season. To look back and give glory to God for what he is doing, to build little altars of remembrance. To give copious amounts of wait time to open up space for all voices to be heard, to encourage others to share their desires big and small. To sit in silence before the Lord and just listen for what he wants to tell me, not what I want to hear.
- Kori has taught me to be unashamed of who I am and to relax in the moment, be silly, laugh. To let go of the pride that keeps me from trying new things for fear of not being good enough. To be interruptible in order to serve the needs of whomever calls out my name. To abolish judgement and love people for exactly who they are. To bring humor to difficult situations, not as a way to avoid them, but to free myself to go deeper.
- Hope has taught me that I am a child of God, first and foremost, and in that truth, I can stand strong in what I believe. That I don’t need to feel the pressure to conform to the expectations of the culture around me, and that I am never alone in that choice. To intercede on behalf of others because my prayers matter to the Lord. To love others wherever they are in their faith journey and gently call them higher.
Above all, together they have taught me that I am loved and this truth really does set me free. Free from a power struggle where I live in fear of love being withheld as a result of what I say or do. Free then to explore the deep places within my soul that I have pushed down, to bring them to the light and to show them to others.
Some things I found in the deep places were beautiful things, things that I had given up on or judged as silly as I grew into adulthood, beautiful things I got to try on again without shame. Things like watercolor painting and African dancing in the rain and cuddling together during movies. I also found so many deflated dreams in the deep places, that my team had helped me to search out and to breathe new life into. Dreams about marrying a man of God and raising children and owning a hostel or maybe a bed and breakfast. Of keeping bees and chickens and growing gardens upon gardens.
And then…some of the things I found in the deep places were not so beautiful and bringing them to the light was difficult not only for me, but also for my team. Things that seemed to cling to my skin even though I didn’t want to try them on. Things like my tendency to judge myself too harshly and then take out my disappointment in myself on those around me. To lash out with sarcasm and passive aggressiveness, all within a mood swing of a few moments. Or my habit of suppressing emotion in order to be ‘strong’ and avoid the vulnerable conversations. I found so much pent up emotion, that I was essentially near tears for the entire last month. I finally let myself cry freely whenever I felt like it and my sisters sat next to me and comforted me.
Together we sorted through lies that I had believed about myself and had joined together into a heavy chainmail shirt that thought protected my heart, but instead, the weight of it simply immobilized me. Lies about how I was either ‘too much’ of something or ‘not enough’ of something else. These patient women broke through the lies by repeatedly speaking affirmation over me and life into me. They have taught me not only to how to love, but more importantly, how to be loved.
I was rereading The Shack for yet another time, and there is a part where the main character Mack is asking Papa, Jesus and Sarayu (the Spirit) who’s in charge. In the mystery of the trinity, who comes first? Papa? And Sarayu replies, “We have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command…What you’re seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don’t need power over the other because we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us.”
I read those words and I knew we had cultivated a bit of this holiness in Team Boulder. That we had built a unity that I’ve never really experienced before, a circle of relationship built upon serving each of the others out of love. We could freely give of our hearts because we knew each of the others was giving freely of theirs too.
Angela, Paige, Kori and Hope, you are so very, very special to me. You have made me feel loved in all my messiness and you have shown me the heart of the Father by doing so. I am forever changed by you and I love who I am because of it. My heart is tied to yours and I never want to let you go. So I won’t. I’ll take pieces of each of you into my next team and into all the relationships in my life. I’ll be the person you’ve taught me to be. I know you’ll always be there for me and I’ll always be here for you, too.
ILY. We made it!
