What can I say!!! Wow!! It has been a challenge for me… I have been broken and put back together so many times. Overall it has been an amazing learning experience for me.
I have learned what it means to fully surrender to God. While camping out in the woods a couple of days ago we had this activity called the surrender walk. We had to write all of our burdens that are keeping us away from truly surrendering to the Lord. At first I was blank because I thought that all of my past, pain, and abuse were completely gone when I gave my life to the Lord. So, as I sat there waiting for things to come to me I realized that I still had so much hurt from my past. In my past I was beat and bruised beyond…. I realized that I have never really dealt with the pain and the reality of it. I always would just move on and put it in the back burner.
As I started to write everything that was in my heart and saw it on the log I still felt like my heart was already healed. So, I was done writing everything I needed and thought was maybe hurting me. As I started to walk to the 3 stations of pastors that were there before we would start the journey I got a little nervous. The first station the pastor said ” this is the DAY you will come back down from that hill free.” I was like really? I did not feel like I was going to be set free… So, skip to the last station the pastor started to pray for me and the he paused for a bit and he said ” you will be so broken this year, but God will put you back together. He said “are you ready?” I said “I am ready” even though that got me more scared about going on the race. I was like what did I sign myself up for??
As I went ahead down the trail all I was thinking about what the last pastor said. I was like ” am I ready for this?” then I met one of the staff that was standing half way through the trail and she asked a question ” what dose this trip mean to you or what do you expect to get out of it?” As I walked by I knew this trip was going to be a big challenge for me. I wanted for God to help me grow and become a women that only lives for Him. As I kept walking there was a stop where you can add stuff to your log and I put independence. Meaning I didn’t trust in other people then myself. I felt God speaking to me that this is something he wanted me to let go .
As I thought I was done here comes hill number one. I finally got up that hill with my log and the next question I can’t remember?LOL So, there was another huge hill I had to go up. I was like OH MY WORD!! I wanted to quit at that point. I was to the point where I wanted to just run away. But, I started going up and never looked back. While going up this hill God spoke to me He said ” If you don’t let go of these burdens then I won’t be able to do the work I want to do in you. At that point I started to cry because I have been holing on to these burdens for so long. I started to pray to God to give me the strength to keep going. I said to HIM that I will do anything for Him. Then all of a sudden Satan started to attack me. He said you are ” unworthy, ugly, dirty… I said to him I AM GOD’S CHILD!!!
God gave me the strength to keep going to the top of the hill where there was other staff there to pray for me. They said are you ready to let go of all this stuff?? I was so ready! I was tired! I wanted FREEDOM!!! So, I went to the cross and layed all of my burdens down. I grieved for 2 days! I felt like Satan had no more control over my life. For the next days I had no more strength, so I leaned how to rely on God. But it was all worth it I was FREEEEEE!!!
The World Race has been the most challenging thing I have ever done in my whole life. But I know I am here for a reason.
Please continue to pray for me it is very much needed. I can’t wait to come home and tell everyone about it. There is just to much for me to write.
Love you all!!
