So when you go on The World Race, each squad is given a married couple called “coaches” for the 11 month journey. Keith and Karen fly out to meet us every few months when we have debriefs. They fill us up with the word of God, they encourage us, they disciple us, they have even become sort of like a Dad and Mom for this past year of life. I say that because they cry when we cry, they know us better then we know ourselves, and they love us like we are their own children. They have given us and blessed us much more than they will ever know.
This past debrief they wrote each of us a “blessing.” They gave each of us a “new name” based on how we’ve grown this year and who they believe God has called us to be. Needless to say, when I returned to my room that night, I wept.
Here is my blessing:
“Hannah – you are Eden.
You are a beautiful garden of the Lord, a display of His grace and unfailing love. Your Heavenly Father is restoring the places where you have felt deserted, and “he is making them like Eden, a place filled with joy and laughter” (Isaiah 51:3). Once-broken walls are being restored, and His light is breaking into the broken places. His love is raining down on you, and you are so beautifully blossoming in His care. Graceful and strong vines of ivy are growing up towards the light as your faith is growing. “And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles” (The Secret Garden). Isaiah 61:11 – “for as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, so the master brings righteousness and love into full bloom and puts his praise on display.””
I hope to continue to step into this “new name” for the rest of my life. And I hope to disciple others in it too. How beyond beautiful is it that God, has turned my weeds into wildflowers…
Love,
Banana
