(Pre-warning if you haven’t read Undercover before reading this blog you may want to take time to read it so this blog makes more sense :))
There are 3 stages I learned that a World Racer will go through. Stage #1 Abandonment, I have come out of the “OMGosh! What in the world have I got myself into? I am in this thing for 11 month! I can’t escape! I left everything I know back home! What was I thinking” stage. Now have moved onto the very emotional all I want to do every single day is cry over something new because I just can’t control the urge to not cry, stage. This is stage #2, welcome to Brokenness!
This month every morning our team starts off with “Amad”. We have learnt this from our time in Nepal. What it is, is every morning we wake up and come together at 9am to start the day with prayer. But there is a rule to this: No speaking or moving, by that I mean stay in one spot and just listen to Gods voice. Today was a different type of Amad though because instead of it lasting an hour we went for 5 hours straight. But we dug a little deeper then just praying about what ministry will look like for the day. For the past couple of days there has been something off, not just myself but I could see it in others on my team. We have just all come to consensus that we kind of live in this “ghost town” where no one speaks English or very minimal. There isn’t a lot to do in our neighborhood unless we drive outside of the city. We are here and don’t have any other option then to just sit back and really think about what we are processing.
People were feeling trapped in there pain and we weren’t letting it out or talking about it. So I invited the team to open up… It ended up being a time were there were a lot of tears as we are all coming to realization that we can’t do this on our own and there is nothing here in our city that we could do to mask the pain. So, we knew we had to deal with it.
World Race was something I thought of being as this amazing trip that I was going to be able to find my identity further in Christ. I would be able to see different cultures and become adventurous and would love every minute of the race. I had a plan to not wish any of it away. But then the race started and ever since then the emotions came with it. Everything I thought the race would be, was but it was so much more! It’s incredibly HARD, challenging, and emotional wrecking. This hard part I speak of, was not something I had signed up for! (haha)
When it was my turn to speak I balled… I felt every emotion you could think of. I was happy, sad, angry, just wanted to scream! Parts of me wanted to go home and be there with my family doing Christmas things. I didn’t want to be a leader anymore because I didn’t know how to do the role. I had no clue how to be a leader and I felt like God wasn’t showing me what to do! Everything I was feeling was just a struggle and I didn’t want to have to deal with it. I would have preferred to ditch the mess and move on. But honestly, once I got it all out I felt so free and the pain I felt before wasn’t there anymore. Although I love the race and wouldn’t change were I am even if I could, the race is still a struggle and you experience so many different emotions way more then normal! Haha. I am learning though to just go through the pain and allow it to come because that is what will allow us to process it and become teachable in those moments, as good things will come out of it!
“Accept Me” is a title that came into my head before I even knew what I was going to be blogging about. Which is pretty cool because once I knew the title the words just started coming together. Our team has reached this point where we are accepting each other whether we are messy or not! We are even encouraging each other to stay in that messy place until God is finished with it no matter how miserable you may feel. Don’t try to escape from your mess once it starts to come just accept it and let it out because God is able to make you stronger through it! So with that being said I hope you “Accept Me” whether I am in the mess or not as it will come out as something so beautiful 🙂
I guess I have never told you about stage #3 yet. Guess it means you are going to have to just wait and see what that stage is until I reach it 😉
Heidi 🙂
