God is doing something really really cool in my life right now, and it involves two areas of my life intersecting and connecting in a way I never could have imagined. Since arriving in Swaziland I have realized two things about myself, which seemed completely unrelated at first, but God made the connection between them for me and I am blown away.
Towards the end of last month, I was frustrated that I wasn’t growing in the ways I had at the beginning of the Race. I chose to come on the Race because of the personal transformation I knew would come through it. I was so excited to grow and change and I wanted it to happen FAST. I didn’t know then that the root of my desire was discontentedness with who I was at the time; I felt like I needed to be a better version of myself in order to be happy with myself.
In Lesotho last month, my team was ministry-focused and Kingdom-first, which was super awesome and so fruitful for us. Through this new attitude, we left behind our former idolization of personal transformation and processing, which was a super awesome shift and helped us press into Christ-centeredness over self-centeredness. But because I wasn’t chasing after those things anymore, I didn’t experience growth and change in the same ways I did the first few months. Growth and change had looked like having really hard conversations and getting hit with conviction and going through tough processing and always struggling with something all the time, and though it brought a lot of personal transformation, it was downright exhausting and sometimes dejecting.
We got to the end of our time in Lesotho and I felt like I hadn’t changed all month. I was initially disappointed. After thinking about it some more, I accepted it and was okay with it, because I was actually really thankful for the last two weeks of the month being restful. I even descibed it as an “oasis in the middle of a desert.” It felt really nice to not feel like I was in a constant state of struggling.
In the last week or so together as Wild Fires we had a couple casual conversations about weight loss; one of our teammates had lost a lot of weight since the beginning of the Race and we didn’t even notice until the end of month 4. Another one of my teammates pointed out that it takes 8 weeks for you to realize that you have lost weight, and it takes 12 weeks for someone else to notice you have lost weight. It makes complete sense!
Losing weight comes from making intentional decisions for the betterment your health. Sometimes you make these decisions without even trying to lose weight; they just happen. Most of these decisions are small and don’t make an immediate difference. You choose not to eat a candy bar after dinner, but your body doesn’t look different the next day. You choose to walk instead of drive to the store down the street, but your clothes fit the same way afterward. But ultimately, those little intentional decisions make a difference! And like Wild Fires realized in Lesotho, sometimes it takes weeks or months to notice how the changes affect your body.
The more I thought about it, I started to realize that the concept of weight loss applies to personal growth, too. The little intentional decisions make a difference. Waking up earlier to read your Bible before starting your day, spending time in prayer, giving and receiving Kingdom-focused and life-giving feedback, seeking the Kingdom of God above all else, among other things make a difference in your spiritual health. Sometimes you can see the difference they’re making, and sometimes it takes weeks to recognize.
For me, it took weeks to realize that I have been changing. It took months to realize that the little decisions I have been making for my spiritual health since the beginning of the Race have made a big impact on who I am now, and that I am not the same Jess that I was before the Race. WOW! That’s really cool! And it’s really cool that that change didn’t have to come through idolization of personal transformation or constant processing and struggling. It came through the little things, too! That gives me a lot of freedom, personally, to continue to pursue ministry-first and Kingdom-focused living, because now I know that when I seek the Kingdom of God above all else, God truly will give me everything I need (see Luke 12:31!).
So my personal transformation and spiritual growth is “weight loss growth” right now. That’s realization #1.
Realization #2 was less fun to realize. While we talked about weight loss in Lesotho, I noticed that unlike my teammate, I had gained weight since the beginning of the Race. Bummer, right? I was super bummed. In the several months between graduating from college and going on the Race, I had lost a lot of weight and was really happy with the changes I saw in my body. In the past several days, I’ve noticed myself backsliding. I’m not confident in my body anymore. I feel uncomfortable in my clothes, like everyone can see that I’ve gained weight by the way my clothes look on me. I feel uncomfortable in my clothes because they straight up don’t fit me well anymore! That’s a bummer for sure, but the hardest part has been the shame and discomfort with myself for gaining weight in the first place. I worry about what people think about me, and how they might be judging me (I’ve recognized this as pride in thinking that people are looking at me and thinking about me in the first place). It hasn’t been pleasant, but what’s SO COOL is that even though it stinks, I can see God using it for my good and His glory!
You see, I have had issues with body image most of my life. I remember starting to compare my body to other girls’ and think of myself as fat when I was in Kindergarten. In high school I taped so many Bible verses to my mirror that I couldn’t see my reflection anymore, and I covered up other mirrors with reminders that I am beautiful, no matter what my body looks like or what the world says “pretty” is. I didn’t even really start liking my body until I lost all that weight at the beginning of last year, and if I’m being honest, I lost the weight because I stopped eating (long story that starts with being anxious about money and leads to saving money by not buying food and ends with losing my sensitivity to hunger and therefore not eating and ultimately losing weight; 0/10, would not recommend). Looking back on my life, I never fully actually genuinely ever learned to love and take care of my body.
Fast forward to now. God is doing SUCH COOL THINGS let me tell you.
Something HUGE that teammates from both Wild Fires and Five Multiplied have challenged me to do is to love myself for who I am RIGHT NOW. It’s so hard for me to be content with who I am right now because I still see all my inadequacies and see places I need to grow and change. Why would I be content with myself right now if I still have so much about me that needs improvement??
God is so wild!
He has me on a journey of accepting and loving myself and being content RIGHT NOW both spiritually and physically. HOW COOL IS THAT?? I LOVE THIS AND I LOVE OUR COOL GOD WHO ORCHESTRATED IT!!!! While I learn to love and accept my body exactly the way it is now, I get to do the exact same thing for my soul and spirit. While I learn to make intentional decisions and changes to make my body more healthy, I get to do the exact same thing for my soul and spirit. God is making me whole – BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT – THAT’S SO COOL!!! As you can tell, I am PUMPED about this journey. And being excited about it and seeing God’s hand in it has already made the process of learning to love myself RIGHT NOW so much easier because I know the end goal.
What is also really cool is that this past week I chose to open up to my team about my struggle with body image and feeling uncomfortable in my body after weight gain, and it sparked a really awesome team conversation about body image and self-love and we found out that it’s something we are all struggling with right now, and I know that God brought us together for such a time as this! Our team goals this month are INTIMACY, AUTHENTICITY, CONFIDENCE, and OVERCOME. I can see God using the topic of body image as an avenue to help us reach those goals. WOOHOO I love seeing His fingerprints all over this season!!
So those are my two realizations and the super cool connection God has helped me see between the two! Thank you all for always fighting for me in prayer. Please keep me in your prayers specifically as I learn to love myself and be content with who I am RIGHT NOW both physically and spiritually. This journey that I am on is beautiful and I’m so excited for it!
To God be the glory forever!
Love, Jess
