Three weeks ago I wrote a blog entitled “11 Things I Learned at Training Camp”. It’s a light-hearted look at what God began doing in me through one week in White, Georgia. If you haven’t read it yet, click here to check it out. Since I have been home from that trip, God has deepened his work in my heart.
Fresh out of high school I entered into a discipleship training program. That year I experienced the deepest intimacy with the Lord that I had ever known. I heard the Lord speak to me in a personal way for the first time in my life, and I learned that He wants to know me intimately. It was life changing, but I still didn’t know the Lord as my Father.
Four years later I became a staff member in the same program. c I had high hopes of changing the world and I took being offered the position as a stamp of approval from God himself. I had no idea this season would be the deepest valley I would ever walk through.
My world came down around me when I realized that full time ministry was hard, people don’t like to be discipled, and I really had very little influence on anybody. I started seeing things I didn’t agree with, leaders I looked up to disappointed me, things didn’t go my way. I began to close my heart off to the people I was ministering with – those I was supposed to be in community with. A deep, mutual distrust grew in our relationships. I could sense that I no longer had favor and trust in my leaders eyes and soon I was working harder, striving to achieve that recognition again and becoming more and more angry at everyone when it didn’t work. Just a year and a half later I was burned out, bitter and had nothing left to give. I couldn’t figure out where God was in all this, let alone hear his voice. I was a miserable, shriveled human being clinging to a fragile hope that God still liked me.
I had become a spiritual orphan. I was more concerned about my mission than Gods. I fought for every shred of affirmation I could find. I gave everything for a cause I wasn’t even sure I believed in any more hoping to hear someone say “Good job, Brooke.” But even with praise it wasn’t good enough. There was always something else I felt I should have been doing so God could be pleased with me, and when I wore myself out and still failed, I became apathetic. I could not rest in his love; I didn’t even know what that meant.
My orphan heart betrayed an underlying belief that I only had a Father in heaven who loved me IF I impressed him, lived up to his expectations, prayed more, earned recognition, strived more, worked harder. He let me try. All my work for him, all my striving amounted to nothing and God was silent. I was confused, depressed, angry and finally, broken.
At this point in my life I have wrestled over those years, surrended them to the Lord, forgiven those involved and more recently sought to restore relationships that were broken. But there was one more thing God knew needed to happen for complete healing to take place – heart surgery. On May 17th, 2014 I left for training camp expectant for what God would do in me, and I was not disappointed!
In part 2 I will tell you what God did at training camp that broke me, and how he put me back together – this time with HIS heart inside me.
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