I’m going to be real for a second, when I saw that I was put on an all girls team on the first day of training camp, I was pretty upset. In my past, all girl groups meant loads of drama, so many feelings of insecurities, pettiness, gossip, and always putting a mask over your true self to avoid inevitable judgement. To be concise, at the beginning of training camp I outwardly acted excited to spend nine months on an all girls team, but on the inside I was anything but thrilled.
Trust and truly letting people in to my past, to my thoughts, to me isn’t easy for me. I didn’t even realize it was so hard for me to trust people, specifically women, until the beginning of the race when my team would share hard things or ask me certain questions and suddenly walls in my head and my heart would spring up and I’d be unable to share or answer. After digging a little deep to find the root of my apparent trust issues, I knew I couldn’t continue the cycle of not letting people in because that would mean no growth, no true deep relationships with my teammates, and a lot less joy. I knew I had to make the decision to trust – to trust that God didn’t place the 6 girls that make up Talitha Koum together by accident and that we have so much to offer each other. But only if trust resides within the team and only if trust resides within me. So, during month one, I made the decision to trust that God didn’t place me on an all girls team to spite me like I had initially thought, but to grow and teach me.
And since making that decision to believe that truth, He’s taught me that sisterhood is a true and beautiful blessing. He’s showed me that sisterhood brings endless joy. The weekly dance parties and endless laughs attest to this. He’s taught me that these girls are my safe place, and now, crying with them and pouring my heart out about my past or what’s on my heart happens almost daily. He’s allowed me to rest in the fact that just as I would do anything for them, my team would do anything for me. Whether that’s carrying my 40 lbs pack around because I can’t walk or letting me wear their freshly washed and dried clothes because I have no clean clothes even though they were definitely looking forward to wearing them, I can count on them without fail to be there for me. He’s given me people in my life to have so much fun with, but people to also call me higher. I can now trust that the bad habits I have developed overtime that are brought to my attention by my team don’t come from a place of malice, but a place of pure love because they see that I have the capability to walk more Christ like. The Lord has given me people to push me, to comfort me, to have so much insane fun with, to love me and to fiercely pursue God with.
My strong relationship with these girls reminds me of a story from the book of Ruth. In the first chapter, Naomi loses her husband and 2 sons. The only family she has left are her 2 daughters-in-laws. After hearing the news of Christ providing food to the people of Judah, she decides to make the journey back there since she believes she has nothing left in Moab. Her daughter-in-laws wish to make the journey with her, but Naoimi believes she is a burden to them and begs them to stay in Moab. Orpah decides to return to her home, but Ruth replies, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” This type of loyalty and love, that can only come from the Lord, is what is flowing through my team.
Our creator has blessed me sisters, and even though I was very ticked at first, I couldn’t see myself living this wild life with anyone else. So, to gals out there reading this that are thinking about/going on the race, all girls teams are where it’s at.
Introducing team Talitha Koum/Tiny Team/my beautiful sisters in Christ:
