AIM explains to you the process of feedback before you come on the World Race, but hearing about it and experiencing it for yourself are two very different things. I just want to explain it in my words now–words of experience.
Have you ever had someone’s words hit your spirit with such force and authority that it feels as if you have something churning within you? I have never known a feeling quite like it until now. It is the feeling of comfort melting away. It is the feeling of what you have always known exiting your body in one instance. You really don’t even know how to feel. It is a mixture of love and hate all in the same moment. It is what happens when truth meets lies. It is what happens when light hits darkness.
I am writing this blog with the very words that I speak of from my team piercing into the depths of my spirit. It is interesting because the world will tell you to avoid the constructive. The world will tell you that constructive words are negative words. It tells us that our comfort is more important than our growth. It tells us that remaining stagnant is perfectly normal or more than that profitable. Oh how I have learned the world is wrong!
As I am writing this I am having a revelation that the feeling of discomfort within me comes not from the words themselves which is truth, but from the actual truth taking up it’s sword and fighting the world and its beliefs. Wow, the Word of Truth taking action now that’s a pretty incredible thought.
That is what team time is for me–the word of truth in action! It is not just six team members sitting in a room hashing out their differences. It is not just letting someone else know when they have really pissed you off or hurt your feelings. It is not just community being community. It is about character. It is about God’s voice. It is about redefining our life not by the mold we have always lived in.
Now that I have experienced community in this way I am addicted to it. I thrive on it. I have heard in the past that many think world racers are weird when they return home because of the community they have lived in for a year. If you want to call it that then sure call it that. However, I believe that weird is not the correct word. Different is getting there, but not exact. Transformed now that’s the word people should use. We have been stretched and sometimes pushed into a greater self. Not the self that we have constructed to fit this world, but a self constructed by our heavenly Father. Sounds a lot like scripture doesn’t it.
“Put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Ephesians 4:24
I want to end this by saying thanks to Chayil. You are truly wonderful, amazing, beautiful women of God and I could not be more proud to live in community with you all. Continue to speak because your words are powerful and effective. They are the words straight from the Fathers heart transforming others into the likeness of Christ. They are words of warriors rising with their swords in hand.
(Team Chayil at Dracula's Castle)
