Hi everyone, we made it safe and sound to Cambodia and after a four day debrief in Siem Reap, my new team and I are now in Phenom Penh in a month of ATL (Ask The Lord). This is such a cool opportunity and even though this is only day two for us and our outreach, there’s a lot going on.
In my last blog, “Well Damn, Look at That,” I let you in on some of the things that have plagued my mind for so many years and a recent revelation that God sparked in my heart. So I’m writing this blog for two reasons.
It’s blog day and I need to, not that I don’t want to.
It’s an update on what’s been going on in the past few days.
It hasn’t been easy. I mean, I finally come across this amazing revelation that I’m worth the fight to make my voice heard or to be myself no matter who accepts me and who doesn’t. But we just had team changes too and now for better or for worse I’m surrounded by people I’ve never really gotten to know. (With one exception, hi Bex!) But even then, I haven’t lived in community with Bex in four months.Circumstances, personalities, communication techniques; a lot has changed. So in many ways it’s like starting from scratch.
And it’s been pretty obvious to me from the beginning the why behind it. There’s no safety net here, no comfort zone. At least, not until I help create one in our team. It’s a brand new start and it’s a chance for me to be one hundred percent myself, really without anyone who might expect me to behave a certain way or who might make me want to act like my old self.
Well, that’s all well and good, but old habits die hard, you know? My go-to is people-pleasing because as I’ve mentioned before, I have an incredibly deep desire to be accepted. So take that and combine it with a craving for control and you get me, trying to shape myself in certain ways so I can kind of manipulate people into accepting me.
Wow, it sounds so bad when I write it out, but ultimately it’s the truth.
Anyway, the past two days have been hard. At debrief our squad mentor challenged us to write down a vision statement, something that holds our values that we can use to remind ourselves to keep driving on toward whatever that goal happens to be. I said mine was,
To see people in love. To continuously grow and step out in courage and vulnerability so that I can walk in undiluted freedom.
So I’ve been pushing myself to love the people around me really hard, to fight to keep fighting, both for myself and for my relationship with them. Right now, honestly, I’m discouraged, but I know it’s just growing pains. Ultimately we will find a rhythm that allows me and my whole team (Team Present) to walk in the freedom of who we are called to be in the Father without compromising communication or loving each other well or a million other little things that can get in the way.
So I love y’all, hope to hear from you soon. If you have any specific questions about me or my Race or basically anything I haven’t answered or mentioned, feel free to reach out, I always love the questions. Maybe next week I can do a blog on giving you those answers!
~TL
