I should have posted this blog sooner, but I haven’t felt like myself ever since I got back from training camp, which is totally not the right phrase to use because I actually feel more like myself than I ever have before. I am just different. I suppose I am just getting used to who God is showing me that I am and learning how to walk in that, which is a learning process. I’ve lived most of my life with a certain thought process and God just came in and turned all of it around.
Before I explain a little more:
For all you future racers that have yet to experience training camp, expect it to be hard in every single way possible. Don’t expect to be one bit comfortable or else you will be in for quite an awakening. As difficult and tiring it was, training camp was just as equally amazing. The Lord showed me things that absolutely blew my mind, so go expecting and open!
Now, to the point.
I have lived my entire life comparing myself to everyone else.
“I wish I could make friends the way she does”
“I wish I could sing like she does”
“I wish I had her talents”
The list could go on and on, and it was really unhealthy. I was so consumed by it that I never recognized it as an issue. I realized I compared myself often, but I justified it as “human nature.”
The coolest day for me at training camp was when the Lord broke me of this “She is cooler than me” thought process I had been living in, and since then, I haven’t been the same!
It was during our women’s retreat, so about 4 days in. (I tell you this so that you can see I’ve had 4 full days to examine all the girls, look at what they had that I didn’t, and envy their strengths that I lacked.) I walked in to the training center to see tables with crayons and water colors set up in the back. I love to draw so I was pretty darn excited. We ended up having a free worship period. That meant we could meditate, sing, read our bible, draw/paint, rest in His presence, any way that you felt like worshipping.
I had never worshipped through art before so I decided to try something new. As soon as I got to the table God spoke to me. He told me to grab specific colors: 3 different shades of brown and a few shades of green. Just from Him being so specific over something as small as a color, I was like what in the woooorld is going on, but I listened and waited for further instruction.
God said “Draw a river at the bottom of the page.” So I did.
He continued “Draw a redwood tree, but don’t fill in all the branches, and draw it a little further up with the roots going deep. Make them reach the river.” So, I did.
Then God told me this redwood tree was me, which at first confused me quite a bit, but as He instructed my drawing further, it made so much sense.
After my river and redwood with missing branches was drawn, God directed my drawing even more. He had me draw two more trees, He said they didn’t have to be a specific type of tree, just make them have all their branches and leaves, one tree have flowers, but don’t make their roots go as deep as the redwood.
After my drawing was finished, I just stared at it. I am not an artist in anyway, so I was half laughing at how ridiculous my trees looked, but God knew it looked silly, and He didn’t care. He began to explain to me that in my picture, He was the river that gave the trees life. I was the redwood who’s roots reached the river and that I am fully rooted and grounded in Him. The reason my branches and leaves were missing was because I was so busy comparing myself to everyone else which was represented by the the other, fuller, prettier trees in the picture, that I wasn’t allowing myself to be all that I could be, lik epart of me was missing. The other trees though, weren’t rooted in The Lord the way I was which, He said, represented all the people I compared myself to.
I hope you guys are following this, because I am so excited typing it, I am banging on the keyboard like a maniac! How cool is God!?
He showed me that 1, I am a Redwood darn it. I am way greater than I think I am. 2, no matter how much I feel I mess up and fail Him, I am rooted in Him and 3, I kept comparing myself to other people that yeah, are pretty and talented, but aren’t grounded in The Lord. So really, I was comparing myself for nothing! I had it in me all along, I just wasn’t putting my attention in the right place.
Everybody compares themselves to somebody at some point. For some, it’s an everyday thing like it was for me. For others, it’s just occassional. Either way, God has called us to find our identity in Him, and that surely cannot happen if we are focused on everyone around us.
