Did you know that growth can be enjoyable at times? Did you know that you can love growth and the process and steps God takes to change your heart?
I definitely love growth and I love changing and learning who God created me to be….but I love it when it fits my box and my mold of growth. I put the growth God could do in my life into a box and subconsciously told God what was off limits.
This blog is not going to be what you expected, and though that’s going to be hard for me I also know it will be a good thing. Debrief was not a joyous time for me. It was not restful and though it had some fun moments, it was extremely hard, eye-opening or rather heart opening…..and good.
Though debrief was neither joyous nor restful, I do call it good. I went in to debrief already feeling overwhelmed and with the expectations that the next season of growth would not start till I hit Thailand. That, at least, was my plans and I quickly found out they were not God’s plans. Instead, that growth started Friday night before I even arrived in Siem Reap and I went into it kicking and screaming.
There is a part of me that I keep hidden from the world and even those close to me and that is my true emotions. I do not like to feel and I dislike people seeing me feel. Feeling hurts too much is what I learned early on. Over debrief I found that I entered survival mode at an early age and I’ve never stepped out of that. My survival mode cuts the feelings and emotions I have. I neither feel tremendous joy nor did I feel deep anger. And feelings is exactly where God has chosen to take this journey I am on.
Anger was an emotion I grew up believing was a sin and eventually I shut down and suppressed the anger instead of learning how to explain it and deal with it. Instead of learning to not express it, I closed myself off and just told myself that anger was not an emotion I would ever experience. Years later, I’m dealing all to well with those emotions. Anger from past events that I didn’t allow myself to deal with (but thought I did). Anger at current events that I can’t change. And one thing I learned over debrief through the help of my leaders is that my anger is pointing to other feelings. My anger is pointing to deep fears I’ve locked down inside of me and that is going to take time to figure out and move past.
Debrief was freeing as much as it was hard. It was freeing because it allowed me to see my anger, my grief, my hurt and my pain, and more importantly the shame I carry and give it to God. There’s some things where that’s been a one time process, and there’s other things like the fear and the hurt and grief that are a daily, if not hourly, process. It’s so very hard for me to allow myself to feel these deep emotions, but it’s even harder for me to be real and vulnerable and express that to those on my team or squad and even you all.
One thing I do know, however, is that God has so much greatness in store at the other end of this. My prayer is that by the end of this month I experience true and utter joy that can only come from God. One of my big prayers for this race is that my joy becomes a dance with God by the end. I want to experience all the emotions God has created and given me and to be able to explain the hard ones and express the joyous/happy ones.
I know this process is not going to be an easy journey for me. It is something that though I want the growth, I’m not excited for the journey towards it. It’s one that has me constantly asking God for His strength and His comfort because my emotions are overwhelming and exhausting. It is a journey that I truly know is going to bring me so much closer to God and change me in deeper ways that I could have ever imagined. And it’s one I would like you all to do with me by praying for me.
Pray that I have the boldness and courage to continually and daily step out of my comfort mode, out of my survival mode of living and keep opening myself up to my teammates and leaders. Pray that even when I’m discouraged that I don’t give up. Pray that I trust God and cling to Him during this time and that I allow my teammates to comfort and love me. And lastly, please join my prayer that I do experience the highs of emotions as well—like true joy.
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I am now in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is going to be a great month of ministry and I am truly excited for it. We arrived here late last night (November 3rd) and are still getting settled in our rooms for the month.
These next three days are full of orientation to our ministry site as we are in an all squad month. Afterwards, I will hopefully have more information to share, especially regarding what my teams ministry will look like.
Be looking for details on my ministry and how to be praying for it in the next few days.
Till Next Time,
Kara Faber
