I’ll start by saying the past month and a half have been filled with tremendous growth. October was a really low point in my life. So much was going on that I was drowning in a sea of despair, but in the end I had made a choice. A choice to fully surrender everything to God. I chose to give him literally all of me. My thoughts, actions, and desires. That has been the best decision I could have ever made! I have had so much growth since then. I have found a joy I didn’t know was possible, and a faith that is unshakable. In the middle of all this amazing growth sometimes there are things you don’t want to face. Sometimes God calls out stuff in your heart that is ugly and you don’t want to deal with. Sometimes God calls you higher.
This month God has been showing me ways that I have hurt people. He has been showing me bitterness that I have stored in my heart for literally years. Also he has shown me people I need to apologize to. For so long I lived in what we call “the victim circle”. This is basically a state of living where you are always the victim. Everything that has happened to you wasn’t your fault. It’s a giant pity party. Being on this race God has shown me how most of my life I lived in this circle. I blamed others for things that have happened to me. I never took ownership of my actions. The past few months, and even weeks God has been helping me walk out of that circle. Now that I am stepping out of it I have to do some uncomfortable things. I have to own up to my actions. Saying sorry to someone is hard for me. It’s hard because in order to say sorry I have to come to terms with the fact I have wronged someone. I used to live a selfish life. I put myself and what I wanted above people that I truly love.
Learning to ask for forgiveness, and say I’m sorry is a lesson I’m glad I’m learning now. When God told me at the start of the race that this would be a season of healing I didn’t think that healing meant restoration. Restoration that can only come when I take the first step in saying I’m sorry. The beauty of forgiveness is seeing the restored heart after. A heart that’s hardened in bitterness can’t grow in joy, because it’s consumed with vines of anger around it. A heart cut free from the tangled web of bitterness can beat with the rhythm of freedom.
God is growing and shaping my heart into what it was created to be. A heart that bears the fruit of the spirit(: I’m so very grateful that I was given this opportunity to do mission work across the world and have God change my heart.
