(Please start by reading parts one, two, and three!)
So much of this trip has to do with living in community. Sometimes it can be terribly frustrating, but it can also be incredibly beautiful. You are constantly surrounded by five people who want the best for you and who notice things about you that you don’t see in yourself. And community, at its best, allows those people to speak truth into your life. When you have so many people consistently telling you new things about yourself, the yucky, old stuff you believed starts to fade a bit.
Ladies, I can’t underestimate the importance of surrounding yourself with a group of wise, godly women. My female teammates and squadmates have spent the last year speaking so much beautiful truth over me, immediately squashing lies and saying things that need to be said, even if it’s hard to hear them. God used them to help break me of so much fear, doubt, worry and anxiety, and to show me new parts of my identity I didn’t even realize existed. Plus they listen to every stinkin spoken word I write. Talk about the world’s best encouragers.
(The beautiful Ginelove, Cassie, and Jess. I am one blessed girl!)
Part of community for me was the new experience of living with men. I don’t have any brothers, and before coming on this trip I spent almost no time around male friends. Nearly every experience with males in my age group had taught me that I lacked whatever qualities men would possibly find attractive. I mean, in high school, my own prom date wouldn’t even dance with me. Everything about my past said that men find me unattractive, ugly, annoying and invisible.
I will never forget the moment when, during a one-on-one time with one of my male teammates, he turned to me and said, “Jenifer, you ARE beautiful. You are physically attractive. You are fun to be around. And you are going to make an amazing wife and mother someday.” It was the first time a man (who I wasn’t related to) ever said anything like that to me. I had simply always assumed the opposite of these things was true. It was a startling new piece of information.
(I am blessed to have these men in my life)
God blessed me with another close guy friend who has repeatedly told me I am loved and I am beautiful. Who, after a discouraging day of shopping for clothes, couldn’t understand why I didn’t see myself as gorgeous, and tried to convince me of that fact. Who has told me that I am worthy of being pursued by a man someday, a thought that I always assumed to be completely false.
(blessed)
Men, you might not realize this, but your voice can be an incredibly powerful force in a woman’s life. Hearing words like this from men who are brothers, who don’t have anything to gain by saying them, who aren’t just trying to get something…it literally began to change my life. Having men speak into my life this way has given me a completely new perspective on myself. I’m beginning to see myself in ways I never have before. It’s incredible.
Of course, along the way, God had to remind me that He was simply using the people around me to show me the love that He has for me. I cannot look to people to give me my identity, to make me feel complete. The things people were saying were true, but it was God using them to show me how He saw me. I need to keep my eyes on Jesus, and not look to others for fulfillment. After all, that is what I had prayed for originally: to see myself as God saw me, to find my identity in Him, not in how other people saw me. Thankfully, He also put friends in my life to remind me of this. (Thanks Ally!)
To find out how this story ends, please read part five.
Be sure to read part five!
