I didn’t realize how dry I was. I didn’t realize how my spirit was calling out for water, thirsty for more.
After 7 weeks home, I thought I was doing ok spiritually. My quiet times had continued since the race, and I was going to church. I came to Project Searchlight excited to see my squad, my family, but thought spiritually I was fine.
Then the music started, my feet ached to move. But in the last 7 weeks they had become stagnant. My feet forgot the steady dance of worship, of life lived in the spirit. But there was something stirring. Deep inside was the whisper: “break free, come back to me.”
On the Race I had learned how to recognize the promptings of Spirit. But coming back to the U.S. meant people, noise, and distraction. Netflix dulled the roar of the Spirit. Loneliness shut me out of community and challenge. I was living with Jesus but Holy Spirit and I weren’t in communion like I had lived in for the last year.
There was something about coming back to a place where I was truly introduced to Spirit that reminded me, ushered me back into the more. As the music continued, my soul became lighter. My hands began to move and my heart entered into the vital dance. As my feet moved, unable to remain still, I could feel it. The slow, sweet quenching of a thirst I didn’t know I had.
If it wasn’t for the well placed retreat in the middle of January, I would have been content to be dry, not realizing the depths that I was craving. Not realizing the more that I wanted, or the fact that in losing my intimacy with Holy Spirit I had lost my fullest, truest self. And man, it was good to be myself again.
So, current and future racers, go. Don’t look at Project Searchlight as something that you are above, or something that AIM planned for all the people who really struggled at home, but not you. I entered Project Searchlight in a good place, but I get to leave an even better place. I get to live a life quenched in Spirit, in deeper intimacy with Him. My dry bones are able to dance.
