If you follow my blogs, you already know that I just posted about my experience at World Race training camp, but the stitches and lice were only a small part of the 10 incredible days in Gainesville, Georgia. In this blog, I’m going to get a bit more serious. Hope you enjoy.
A little background information about me – I grew up in the Episcopal church, a cradle Episcopalian as they call it. Baptized at 3 months old, confirmed at 13, and my dad was ordained as an Episcopal priest when I was 9. If you couldn’t tell, the church and faith have always been a big part of my life. However, growing up in this type of environment, I often fell stagnant in my faith. Not progressing, not moving, just comfortable. That’s the best way I can describe my relationship with the Lord for the majority of my life – stationary, consistent, comfortable. Believing in the Lord and knowing what He has created me to do, but never taking action, never truly following.
This is because truly following Him is scary and pretty darn difficult. I mean, for thousands of years Christians all over the world have been subjected to death for proclaiming their faith. In schools, kids who go to church and talk about God or even just youth group get labeled as that weird super religious kid. Knowing that to truly follow, you will be asked to give up a lot scares me.
Training camp destroyed these fears. God destroyed these fears, and left nothing but hunger to serve in my heart.
On July 9th, while all 275 of us racers were worshipping, one of my squad trainers put her hand on my shoulder and began praying over me. Pretty much whenever anyone began praying over me, I broke down in tears. It would just overwhelm me with love and the presence of the Lord, but soon after the prayer, I would come down from that spiritual high. Back to comfort. All throughout that day on the 9th, I kept asking Jesus to let me fall into Him. That He would take me into His hands and shape me. I just wanted to fall, but at the same time, stepping out and getting uncomfortable, falling into the unknown and wondering if He would catch me, was scaring me. He knew this.
After Ashlin finished her prayer and took her hand off my shoulder, I began silently praying for God to not let me come back down to comfort, for Him to give me the strength to fall. And He did. On July 9th, in the middle of worship, I felt God put His hand on my shoulder. At first, I thought it was Ashlin again, coming to comfort me as I was still crying, but when I turned around, no one was there. Yet, I still felt a tight, strong hand on my shoulder. I was overwhelmed with peace, and a lot of goosebumps, but mostly peace. Such a deep rooted peace that my anxiety-prone self had never experienced before. I was falling. He was letting me know that I can and will truly follow Him.
And as I went through the rest of the day, I could feel my fears diminishing. I no longer cared about ridicule from my peers, or about not being able to wear my nike shorts, or having to shower out of a bucket, or about how I wasn’t wearing make-up. I only cared about loving and I only cared about serving, because that is what I have been called to do. Never before in my life have I been so excited to evangelize because all I want to do is bring Christ into anyone and everyone’s lives. We are all deserving of His grace, love, and peace. Everyone is deserving of His goodness. And I can’t wait to show this to all of His people.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, and he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:6-7
