I don’t cry. Ever. Being able to take blow after blow, and keep a straight face is something that I have always prided myself on.
I catch my boyfriend cheating on me. I just walk out. No tears.
My parents are getting a divorce. I have to be the strong one to show my family that everything will be all right.
Someone calls me fat during class, while their friend throws wads of paper at me. I completely ignore them. If you show weakness and start crying it will just egg them on.
My very first boyfriend brakes up with me over text. My best friend decided that now would be a perfect time to pull out the video camera ‘You’ll be happy you have this moment on tape someday.’ I can’t cry on tape!
Crying has always been a weakness in my eyes. Showing weakness through tears has always been something that I have feared more then almost anything else. Coming on The Race has made me realize that I am pretty shut off emotionally; and that it’s not necessarily the good thing i always thought it was.
A couple months ago (in Cambodia to be specific (November)) the fact that I was an emotional stump was brought up, and I realized that my emotions were one area that I was not giving up to the Lord. I was holding tight to the role of indifference I have carried for so long. With much worry I told the Lord that he could have His way with my emotions. I expected to become a crying ball of mush.
We are now in Kenya, three months after I prayed that prayer, and nothing has happened. Three months in the real world does not seem like all that long of a time. On The Race however three months is a decade. It’s three different countries, and three different seasons. I found myself at the beginning of this month talking to one of my squad leaders, telling her all the things that were going on in my heart. Thats when she looked at me and said that she could tell that I was on the verge of tears, and fighting it off pretty hard. Completely embarrassed that I had shown weakness I told her that crying over something so stupid was not logical and was pointless.
I realized that even though I prayed that prayer months ago giving up my emotions, it was only just words. I can say ‘Lord you can have my emotions’, but if I fight any emotions I feel there after, the prayer is completely void. I didn’t give the Lord free reign over my emotions at all, I just said what I thought would fix everything.
The hard part of life I am realizing is that the Lord DOES heal us of past hurts (like my inability to show emotions for example) however he rarely just wipes us clean just like that. If we want patience, He gives us opportunities to be patient. If we want faith, He puts us in situations where we need great faith, and if I ask Him for emotions, He will give me opportunities to feel. Opportunities to cry. Opportunities to be weak.
The Lord has been giving me opportunities time and again over the last three months to be open with my team, to be vulnerable, to cry. However every single time I felt the Lord pulling on my emotional strings I fought it off. I will NOT be weak. I will NOT cry. I had not given my emotions over to the Lord at all.
I am so scared of being view as weak.
In Psalms 17:2 it says “In your presence let my vindication come! Let your eyes behold the right.”
If I am afraid of being viewed as weak by the people around me, who am I seeking to get my vindication from? Certainly not from the Lord.
In 2 Corinthians 12, it says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’… For when I am weak then I am strong.”
The Lord is strong when I am weak, but I refuse to be weak. I refuse to show anyone that I can be weak, that things affect me. I am refusing to let the Lord be the strength in my weakness, because I wont be weak. I am insisting to run things on only my own strength, because to me weakness is not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.
I have decided to give my emotions to the Lord again, But this time I want it to be more then just saying words, I want it to be a life changing decision. The next time I feel like crying, weather it is a stupid reason, or not I’m going to try and let myself go. I am going to try and let the emotions that the Lord gave to me flow when he calls them to flow. I am going to try and pull myself out of a place of judgement of myself, and fear of judgement from other, and actually let the Lord have my emotions like I tried to back in Cambodia. When I come home I want to be able to say, and say proudly, that I am now a crier!
