Written After Training Camp but Before Launching on The World Race:
. . .
Ever since I got back from Training Camp I have had writer’s block, but a writer’s block that has infected my life, not just my writing.
I asked the Lord to break me and He broke things in me, but I was left with more than I knew how to deal with. And it felt like a huge standstill in my life. He broke me emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
I have been sitting here trying to make sense of it, and it just doesn’t.
I feel like a mess.
I came back from Training Camp super excited about the World Race, but feeling almost lost and REALLY confused and far from peaceful.
All of a sudden, this thing I have been talking about doing for a year is approaching, and I feel like I haven’t had enough time to get everything done.
. . .
The one thing that I was super excited for was the abandonment aspect that AIM stresses.
To leave my comforts, my people, my control all behind and finding all that in Christ.
Coming home from training camp felt like that was beginning to be the thing I dreaded. I didn’t want to do it and I was still dragging my feet to do it.
Although I want the kind of dependency that abandonment brings to a relationship with Christ, I still want to be there when my mom gets home from a long day of work and needs some support. I want to be there for my sister and my brother in law as they have their first baby. I don’t want to miss the warmth and love of the big family gatherings at my Dad and Stepmoms house for a whole year.
I don’t want to miss the laughs with my nephews and nieces. The hugs from my grandparents when they visit. The random movie days with my step-mom. I don’t want to wonder what a year away will do to my deep friendships. I want to be there for my close childhood friend and my godson as they embark on a new chapter of their lives.
I still don’t want to leave the kids I have been watching almost every Sunday since high school, because what if they don’t remember Miss. Jenny as close as they do right now? I don’t want to miss out on a year away from an amazing family I was babysitting for because it feels like they are family and the kids are going to grow like crazy while I am away.
I want the fruits that come with trusting God, but I don’t want to let go of the things that have been comfortable and good in my life.
. . .
This whole year before the race God has been trying to teach me about what it means to do something for yourself and what it means to do something to glorify Him.
I have been operating under the assumption that any kindness is glorifying to God. I have been selfish in my love and my kindness. You see, I have been doing things not to bring glory to Christ, but instead because it was how I felt loved. It was how I found joy in myself.
Serving is undoubtedly one of my spiritual gifts, but this gift has been tainted for too long.
I have let the enemy distract me of the full potential of my serving heart.
I have been doing things for people to make Jenny feel good and to control Jenny’s environment.
What the Lord has shown me more than anything this year before the race is that I cannot do it on my own. I am incapable alone. I get burned out. I cannot make everyone happy and always feel supported because I will fail.
What I have been rejecting after this realization (unintentionally) is the chance to figure out how to do it WITH God. How to make the kindness and love glorify someone far greater than myself.
. . .
At training camp, I stood up and sang
“Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God,
oh it chases me down, fights till I’m found, leaves the 99,
I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still, you give yourself away,
oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God, yeaaaaaahh”
The Lord told me that I had no understanding of this love, and I stood there kind of embarrassed.
I literally told someone before we went to worship that I think I have a good handle on the Lord’s love.
I was utterly humbled when the Lord told me I haven’t even come close to grasping His love!
I will never grasp it, and that is the beauty of it!
Even though sharing the Love of God is a passion of mine, it is one that “surpasses all understanding”.
As long as I am trying to work out of my understanding of God’s love and try to live up to that with people, I am blocking them of a chance to see His unfailing, enormous love.
It’s just absolutely beautiful what the Lord has been doing in my life this past year so many things point to this.
And while I don’t have all the answers on how to be a vessel for the Lord I am learning what not to do in some areas.
To be continued…
TTFN,
Jenny
