For the last 7 months, I’ve been trying to figure out what it is to be a good, loyal wife. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is to be a good, loyal teammate. And feeling like I’ve been a failure on both fronts.
When it came to being a wife, I’ve felt like I wasn’t listening well enough, that my husband felt more like a team member and not a husband. I’ve been stressed over trying to pay him more attention than the team, and feeling like I keep giving him the short end of the stick. I’ve been trying to help him be a man in the midst of women, but can’t do that because, as a woman I can’t help him become more manly. I can’t give him man time. I have even tried to be his advocate, but end up feeling like when I defend him, I’m actually pointing out his flaws (which makes him feel like there aren’t too many redeeming qualities about him). Ultimately, I’m left feeling like the failure (not his fault).
Then with team, I try to connect, but have ended up needing to hold back. In the last few months I’ve needed to hide away with Scott, to take much time away from team. So, my team feels like they don’t know me. They tell me they learn more about me from my blog. And I learn about them from their blog. I try to impart things I’ve learned and giftings that I’m finding I have, and end up feeling like those gifts and ideas can’t be shared or imparted. That’s not to say what I have to share isn’t good, or that my teammates are dense… that’s not it at all. We’re all just learning different things right now. So, where God has me right now is a different place than he has my teammates, and so my voice is one that can’t be received at the moment, and that’s ok. But, it ends up making me feel like a failure again (not their fault).
At this last debrief, I learned about soul ties. I learned that how my husband and my teammates feel can’t make me feel a certain way. If I’m having a good day, I can’t let their negativity (or positivity) affect my emotions. That’s what it means to have a soul tie with someone. To be emotionally connected so much that you end up experiencing their emotions. And I’ve learned that it can be a hindrance even in a marriage situation. And it took someone who has been there before to impart that to me.
Lisa Black (Gary’s wife) said that she’s been there before. And she’s learned the hard way to break those ties. And their marriage has benefited from breaking those ties. I look at their marriage, their life together, and I see a couple that we can truly learn from. For the first time on this race, I have felt like I could relate to another woman. Lisa opened herself up to me, and I felt like a daughter and a wife at the same time. I felt like she understood where I was coming from and where I was going. She knew without even asking me, where I was struggling, and she let me cry on her shoulder.
Lisa spoke to the World Racers one morning about spiritual parenting, and about trust. I don’t know if that’s even where she intended to go with her speech. But when she shared that she and Gary, and the other leaders want to help us through the visions God is giving us, it hit me hard.
After she finished, I told her privately that Scott and I had been prophesied over back in Nelspruit. I confided that Scott and I were birthing something big. That God will be doing something pretty big through us. That we will be given a heck of a lot of responsibility in whatever that vision entails. And when Lisa shared in her “sermon” that each of us World Racers has been impregnated with a vision from God, and that the leaders want to help each of us through the birthing process, I was struck pretty hard by the imagery. The wording… birthing, pregnancy. One of my last blogs was named Birth Pains, and that’s because Scott and I have been impregnated (figuratively) already.
So when I shared with Lisa, I told her about the prophetic word. And I asked her to come along on this with me. I wanted a spiritual mother to help me through the birthing process of this dream, this vision, God is birthing. And she said yes, she’ll let me lean on her shoulder when it’s hard, and when I feel like a failure, and when I feel like aborting. Why, because she believes in me, in the vision, and she wants to see it come to fruition (maybe even more than I do). And for that I’m truly thankful and grateful.
