How do I begin to put the last year of my life into words?
A little more than a year ago I rode with my squadmate Mallory down to Gainesville, GA for World Race Training Camp. I remember our anxiety as we pulled into the grassy lawn to park. Mal had just broken her toe, we were sick over the fitness test we’d have to complete during our time there and we shared our fear of the chance we’d get sent home. I’m happy we’re able to look back now and laugh at the pure silliness of that conversation. If only the fitness test was the toughest thing I experienced this year.
I am not the same girl I was that day or at the end of the ten days or when I took off on a flight to South Africa in July. And I thank God I’m not.
Throughout the last 11 months, the Lord has redeemed the last twenty four years of my life. I left in a state of mind in which I believed I had the whole being a Christian thing together. By the end of the first week I knew I was wrong. God began showing me how ignorant I was about His Word, His Truth and His pursuit of my heart.
This year I fell in love with Jesus.
It all began the night before I left Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa at the end of our first month. Team Wildfire did listening prayer and shared what the Lord spoke to each of us. Kels drew my name from the pile and handed me a letter from our Father.
“I’ve come to break the chains and set you free,” it said.
Four of us were consumed by Holy Spirit, paralyzed wherever it was we had been while we prayed. I was wrapped in my sleeping bag, weeping. Kels was on her knees next to me, praying fervently. Johnny sat on the top bunk and continued drawing and Jace stood and sung in worship.
The next morning I was baptized in the Indian Ocean at sunrise. As Jace and Johnny lifted me back up from under water, I felt free, redeemed, chosen. My sin was washed away. That evening we went to our last service at Victory Church and I was approached by a girl I’d never seen before.
“During worship God spoke to me and told me to share His words with you,” she said. I nodded as she continued.
“He said He’s broken the chains and you’ve been set free.” Tears streamed from my eyes in disbelief.
I didn’t know it then, but the next ten months would be a journey of high’s and low’s learning to accept the Truth He had spoken. It was all about surrendering the sin, the shame, the guilt and the regret I was still identifying myself with.
It wasn’t until life on the Race got real hard, that I actually began falling in love with Him. He’d stripped me of my close-knit family and the relationship I’d manipulated to look like a good thing. He asked me to take a huge leap of faith and fast for twenty-one days. I was seven months in, broken to pieces and wanted nothing more than to go home. The enemy tempted me when I took one of my closest friends to the airport after he decided it wasn’t best for him anymore. I remember sitting there thinking how easy it would be to go, but deep down I knew there was more for me.
During my fast, I learned dependence on the Lord like never before. I truly had to depend on Him for sustenance, energy, strength, patience, kindness, love. I woke up every morning before the sun rose and danced on the rooftop with Him then spent hours getting to know His character through His Word. Each day, He satisfied and fulfilled me. There were some hard days [days 4 and 11 were the worst] but I realized I’d really only withheld food rather than fasted. The days I sought the Lord for His nutrients, He’d supplied them.
As I grew in my dependence on Him, intimacy followed, and the more time I spent with Him, the deeper I loved Him. That’s when I first experienced true love. A love that has no fault, no insecurity, no partiality, no games to play; just a desire to give me all of Himself.
The middle of the Race seemed like a road block on my journey with the Lord. I was covered in shame of the sin I was committing and allowed that darkness to overcome me. I couldn’t give anyone the parts of me they deserved because I felt empty and unworthy of affirmation.
If you know me even just a little, you know I’m very emotional. For me, expressing emotion brings freedom and healing. Between the awe I experienced in God’s creation in nature and the brokenness I experienced in each community I lived in during the first four months, I cried almost every day. I couldn’t hold the tears back if I tried. For reasons still unbeknownst to me, that part of me shut off at some point during the fifth month. During the next six months, I only cried seven times. I remember every single instance.
The inability to express emotion made me wonder if I could even feel anymore. I questioned if the Lord had taken the gifts of compassion and empathy away from me and began longing for tears to pour from my eyes. I wanted to feel the hurt I was experiencing. But even though emotion ceased to consume me, I knew Truth. I knew I was madly loved by my Father.
In the final month of the Race, I began to unveil the pain I’d hid away deep in my soul. The pain I’d experienced when I first had team changes, the pain I’d experienced when I was raised up as a team leader, the pain I’d experienced when I was hurt by my teammates, the pain I’d experienced when I felt abandoned, the pain I’d experienced when I felt inadequate, the pain I’d experienced when my close friend went home early, the pain I’d experienced when I realized I was choosing my flesh over God, the pain I’d experienced when I couldn’t be what I was desired to be, the pain I’d experienced when I unintentionally hurt others around me, the pain I’d experienced when I surrendered my future, the pain I’d experienced when I was gossiped about, the pain I experienced when a friend of mine committed suicide, the pain I’d experienced when I didn’t want to pray or worship or read the Word, the pain I’d experienced when I stopped feeling the presence of the Lord and the pain I feared experiencing after the Race.
I spent a day with my best friend Kelsey, writing down memories of the Race we’d shared together and talking about my fears of the future. Almost all of them had to do with friendships. Through it, the Lord revealed the insecurities I was allowing to hold me captive. I hadn’t been able to grieve because I was bound up in the attacks of the enemy, unable to walk in the freedom my Father had given me.
During the last two weeks of the Race, I confided in a few of my closest friends and they filled me with truth about myself and my relationships. Some was soothing to hear and some brought me to tears, but all of it pushed me deeper into the arms of Jesus. He wrapped them around me and overwhelmed me with His love. It sounds silly, but I’d forgotten how special I am in His eyes. As I accepted His love, I felt the freedom I knew was mine all along. I finally grieved all that I hadn’t in the last six months over the course of three days as well as leaving the friendships I built along the way.
As this journey comes to an end, I can honestly say it was worth it. It was worth every tear, every pinch of heartache, the consuming homesickness. And I’d go through it all again to experience the Holy Spirit and fall in love with Jesus the ways I have. I’ve taken so much away from this journey but the most powerful of it all is how to have an intimate relationship with Christ.
