PROLOGUE
I’m watching.
Quietly, observing.
Seemingly the entire crowd is exuberantly worshipping. People are dancing and shouting and laughing. This is what I had in mind for me. The loud and the active and the obvious. But no. I feel disconnected and confused. It’s as if I am watching myself sit here. I watch and hear myself question. This is not me. I do not question. I am sure. But I listen more closely and hear myself plea “What do you want?” over and over.
I’m watching.
Quietly, observing.
And then I’m crying. Not the pretty kind with glistening tears that you can dab away with a delicate handkerchief. This is the messy, blubbery, can’t catch my breath, shaking kind of crying. I never cry.
And I know it is the Spirit.
Identity Crisis
I am the master of this backpack and these packing cubes. I have it narrowed down to 3 choices of footwear and managed to even squeeze my official ENO bug net in next to my super-compressed sleeping bag. I have a box of 50 sQuad t-shirts, a TOMS sack of purple headbands, a frilly purple tutu, and a flower crown that makes me look a little bit like a fairy who got lost in a lilac bush.
I am ready.
This is how I headed off to Gainesville. I felt prepared and excited and giddy. As my road trip buddy arrived in Cincinnati I could feel it getting more and more real. We took a cliche backpack picture and embarked on a week-long journey that I was made for.
Arriving at Adventures in Missions was exactly like I expected. I could spend paragraphs describing the anxious/joyful meetings with squadmates, the challenges of setting a tent up in the mud for the first time, and the permanent Georgia-dirt orange color that is still between my toes. But seeing as God has yet to call me to write an entire book on training camp, I am going to skip ahead a bit.
The first few days were a whirlwind of name-learning and simulations designed to give a taste of what being on the field is like. On day 2 I had my backpack – including the majority of my clothes and my tent – “lost”. I would be sharing a tent and bag with one of my wonderful squadmates. I had no concerns. I could totally handle this. At about midnight I woke up with the awful realization that if I didn’t get out of that tent, the little bit of food that I had eaten that day would no longer be in my stomach. I sat on the concrete about 50 yards away from the 60 tents of my new family members and prayed that this was a fleeting moment of illness. Several hours later a few of the men from my squad – probably having been rudely awoken from the sound of some pathetic puking person – came to check on me. I was embarrassed and frustrated. I am the one who is prepared and in charge. I am the one who check on others and serves the people around me. This was reversed. This was not how I planned it.
I ended up spending a significant portion of that day being cared for and prayed over. The nurses were wonderful, my squad was concerned, and I got a chance to rest after a long, shivering night. And I was mad. Mad that I didn’t get to participate fully. Mad that I wasn’t getting to bond with my new besties. Mad that I was not in control. Conveniently enough, the little first aid room was right off the back of the space where the messages were given and worship was happening. As I laid on a futon with the door cracked open just enough, I listened at 250+ racers began to shuffle in and worship started. I asked God why I was stuck in here when all I wanted to do was worship. The answer was painfully obvious. My worship had become about my wants. I wanted to be in charge of the circumstances. I wanted to be in control of the environment. My expectations had begun to box in the movement of the Spirit on my life. By physically bringing me to a place where I had no control of the situation, God began to move in my heart in a way that I never expected.
Eventually my fever went down and they released to go back to my squad with the stipulation that I take it easy for a bit. So I went back and walked straight into a dance competition. Awesome. Taking it easy while everyone else dances their little hearts out was not my plan. God and I chatted about it for a minute and He reminded me (again) that I am not the one in charge. I got out my camera and got to spend some time really watching my squadmates. I started to see things in them that I couldn’t when I was running around trying to be in charge of all things. My heart was softened when I was able to take my eyes off myself.
Over the next several days God just piled on reminders of His control and my lack-there-of. For example, the women in our squad were simulating being in a plane crash. The idea was that we would have to work as a team to get everyone back to safety. Each person would have some kind of disability. I was all ready to make a plan and rescue my teammates. Then they handed out the roles and guess what I was? Unconscious. I spent the remainder of activity literally being carried by the women on my squad. Being served and handing over the reigns is uncomfortable for me, and over and over again I kept finding myself in this position.
As you head into the second-half of camp, the AIM staff begins to intentionally put together the first team that you will be traveling with. I loved this process. I found it so intriguing how they prayed over us, engaged us in discussion and team building activities, and sorted through the responses that they were receiving. After re-reading the previous paragraphs I cannot believe that I am about to write this, but I totally thought I had this process down. I would be open and honest and the leader and I would end up happy and settled and in charge of a great team of racers. Most of this is true. I am happy and settled, and grateful and full of anticipation. But surprise surprise – I am not in charge. I should have probably been more prepared for that one. Mentally I was good to go. I am so in love with my team and trust our leader to make wise, Spirit-led decisions. Yet, at the end of our first outing together I found myself with this lump in my throat and this nagging feeling that something was hindering me from experiencing this fully. I tried to brush it off. I don’t rock the boat and I sure as anything was not about to cry in front of my new team and the rest of our squad who had begun to join us outside of the training center for worship. Crying was not something that I did (remember that past-tense use).
We shuffled into worship – we are now on the second to last night of camp – and took our places for another night of incredible praise to our Father. I was totally geared up in my usual spot toward the front. Worship began and I lifted my hands out of habit. I sang the words out of routine. I closed my eyes, but only to find that I was getting lost in my own thoughts. I started feeling frustrated and distant. The things I was seeing were on the outside. And I find myself here.
I’m watching.
Quietly, observing.
Seemingly the entire crowd is exuberantly worshipping. People are dancing and shouting and laughing. This is what I had in mind for me. The loud and the active and the obvious. But no. I feel disconnected and confused. It’s as if I am watching myself sit here. I watch and hear myself question. This is not me. I do not question. I am sure. But I listen more closely and hear myself plea “What are You doing?” over and over.
I’m watching.
Quietly, observing.
And then I’m crying. Not the pretty kind with glistening tears that you can dab away with a delicate handkerchief. This is the messy, blubbery, can’t catch my breath, shaking kind of crying. I never cry.
And I know it is the Spirit.
It is the Spirit – flooding over me in tears and in brokenness. It is the Spirit – untangling my identity from my role. It is the Spirit – filling me the truth about who I am.
I am not my role. I am not a children’s pastor or a daughter or an RA. I am not a missionary or a teacher. I am not independent. I am not self-made.
I am His. I am a daughter of the King. I am a vessel to to be used at the will of the Creator. I am dependent.
It is an identity crisis. Erik Erikson, the theorist who coined this term, described an identity crisis as a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself. When I read this description I see words like “analysis” and “exploration” and it looks to me like the world’s view of an identity crisis is a lot of work. My identity crisis was not a lot of work. It was a change in the direction of my eyes. It was handing over of the tangled mess that I had made to the master who weaves all things together. Turns out that I don’t have to perform or uphold my own expectations of myself. God guided my identity crisis and is resolving it in Him.
As I continue on this journey I know that there will be uncertain days. I know that I will be tempted to revert to my own power and control. But I also know that I have a God who will continually untangle my knots. I pray that my identity remains in crisis so that I never stop fighting to look less like me and more like my Father.
