This is what I learned from living with a team for 11 months: It is so much easier to tear down than to build up.
That’s a hard realization to swallow, especially when I know that I was a part of that destruction. That I played a role in tearing it down.
But…I also got to play a role in building it back up.
A little back story; the first 4 months of my race on Team Alegria was incredibly challenging, and the next 4 months on team F.L.A.M.E. were even more challenging. Hands down the hardest struggle and challenge for me on my race had everything to do with being on a team and living in community. When you live that close in community, you see everyone’s crap. You see through holes and flaws. Even yours. You can’t fake it on the world race. You can’t fake it with your team. And you can’t fake it with yourself. There’s no pretending, no hiding. Eventually you get to the end of your rope.
Now fast forward to month 9 of my race. I was done. I was done with this team and ready for a team change. There were rumors and anticipations after our second 4 months were up to change teams again. I was looking forward to it. Our team was so broken and unhealthy and miserable. We were all pretty much done. Everyone except for our team leader.
So to say that I was disappointed when our team leader got up to announce who her “new” team would be, and she read all of the same people I had been with for the past 4 months minus one and plus two, would be a severe understatement.
I was angry. And even that’s an understatement.
It might sound dumb to you, but that’s probably because I haven’t expressed all the stuff that went on in my team from month 1 to month 8. But I don’t care to go into detail about it now. That’s not what this blog is about. It’s about what the Lord taught me through all of this.
I was ready to throw in the towel and give up. Actually I was passed that. I had already thrown in the towel and given up. Most of us had, and now we were heading to Honduras, month 9 of our race, with the team that we would be with for the remainder of our journey. Things were tense.
It takes a press of a button to destroy a building, and much, much longer to rebuild it.
It takes one spark to start a wildfire. One affair to destroy a relationship. One hurricane to wipe out a city.
The point being that our ecosystem, our way of life, whatever you want to call it, is incredibly fragile. One thing can disrupt it.
And sometimes it takes a lot of bad decisions over and over again to ruin it. But the point is still the same; it’s fragile. Broken. And to work towards saving, protecting, changing something that is broken, is hard work. Anyone who’s ever tried breaking a bad habit knows what I’m talking about. It takes determination, discipline, dedication, and a whole lot of patience.
And sometimes we just don’t care.
This was my team. We had all come to the end of each other’s ropes. And it wasn’t pretty.
But God did something unexpected that month. He began to redeem and restore our broken team. And how did He do it? By redeeming and restoring me. By changing my heart, my mindset, my attitude towards my team and teammates. By changing my actions and reactions towards them. In my mind, my team was always the problem. But then I learned a sobering fact: I was a part of that team and a part of the problem. I shared in the destruction. But I now had the opportunity to take part in the restoration.
It took a lot of hard work and very real conversations, and it wasn’t fixed over night. It never achieved perfection. But that was never the goal. God taught me through all of this, that no matter what, no matter how broken you think a relationship is, no matter how done you are with a person, no matter how much you’ve messed up, God. Is. Bigger.
He is bigger. Our God is a God who restores. That’s what He does. That’s His character. If you need some of that restoration in your life, for you or for a relationship or for a family member, I urge you to believe that God is bigger, and that He can redeem anything. It’s not too late. It’s not too far gone.
If there is still breath in your body, breath that God has given you, then He has a plan for your life. And you can keep bringing about your own destruction and the destruction of others, or you can start participating in the good plans God has for you to build it back up.
It won’t be easy. An easy life is one thing God never promised, but it will be worth it. Because when you give up, whether it’s on yourself or on others, you forfeit the opportunity to see and be a part of something that God rebuilds, and it is the most powerful thing. I would have never known how powerful our God is, and the power of His redemption had I been placed on another team when I wanted to give up on my teammates month 9 of my race. I almost missed out. But I didn’t. And it is something I won’t ever forget, because I had to fight for it, and God had to humble me, and for that I am so thankful.
In Memory of Team F.L.A.M.E./R & R. I love y’all!
Until the next adventure,
Teej
