Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known
Colossians 1:24-25
August 8th through the 18th I was at training camp and was able to meet my amazing squad and my amazing team (more on them to come). However, there was one person that I met at training camp that stood out among the rest: Ashley Francis, or as we all know her, Fran.
Fran is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and I can confidently say she’s my favorite human being. Sounds strange for someone that I just met, huh? But what if I told you that this woman represented and displayed Christ for me personally in a way that no other had.
SHAME
First let me explain what God had been doing in my heart while at training. He really began a process of releasing me from a lot of shame that I had been carrying. I had realized that my shame of not feeling fit enough, skinny enough, or worthy of affection really became the place that I operated out of in all of my relationships. Not only that, it really affected my physical well being and views about moving my body (aka physical activity).
The way this manifested was by not breathing correctly because I knew breathing correctly from my stomach would expand it and make it look larger with each breath, so I exchanged full life giving breaths for shallow breaths (a large reason for my vocal injury from high school). Other times while going up stairs or climbing up hills I would hold my breath because I didn’t want people to hear me out of breath and think I was not fit enough to handle it. This obviously is not a good habit, because breathing is life. I also hated working out with people for two reasons. 1. I am not competitive, because if I were jogging and the person I was with passed me, I would default to a walk, feeling defeated. 2. If someone tried to cheer me on saying, “You’ve got this!”, it didn’t translate to encouragement, it translated to pity.
WHO HE SAYS I AM
This is where Fran starts to come in the picture. She helped me truly understand the Word of God and was physically present for Jesus. As I asked God what He thought of me, in response to all the shame I felt about myself, He replied “Perfect”. I thought it was odd, and I even wrestled with Him about it, saying “Human’s aren’t perfect, that’s ridiculous”. Through other leader’s confirmation and through God’s Word, He showed me that I do not get to judge what is accurate or not in His statements. All of his words and thoughts are true, who am I to argue.
By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 10:14
At training camp we were trained spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and even physically. One of the requirements for the World Race is to be able to walk/hike 2.2 miles in 38 minutes WITH our big packs (weighing in at about 50lbs). We did this hike as a team one morning at training. Sure, this was definitely a battle with my physical body, but from the first step of this hike I entered spiritual warfare.
The hike consisted of two 1.1 mile loops, the beginning and end of these loops being made up of steep inclines. I made it through the first loop with pretty good timing, and as I began the second loop the real struggle began. My team needed to go on ahead of me to complete the hike in time, and it now began to be a question of “Can I really do this?”. My breathing increased, my muscles tensed, and I began to hear the voice of Shame screaming at me. I could not get passed the screaming… and then out of nowhere, dear Fran came.
I was doing this hike with NO music playing, as I had felt in my heart from the beginning that I didn’t need to distract myself with it. I was right…because God needed to talk to me through Fran in order to give me the beginning of freedom that He desired for me to have.
“Keep breathing: In through your nose, out through your mouth” she encouraged me gently, addressing the first thing that Satan attacks: my breathing.
I almost broke down as Shame screamed at me words such as “defeat”, “You can’t do this”, “You’re not capable”, “You’re not fit enough”, “You’re a hindrance to your team, and they don’t need you”. On the verge of breaking down, which would have interfered with my breathing…
“Keep your eyes on me. Look at me. Look at me.” Once again, she spoke to me gently, as if the Holy Spirit was giving her the exact words she needed to speak to me. It was at this moment that I realized, she was representing Jesus for me. “I bet you’ve already done more than you thought you could”, she said encouraging me and letting me know it was up to me to make up my mind to fight this battle.
It was then that I decided to fight to hear God’s small voice amongst Satan yelling at me, and amongst fighting through the enemy’s lies, I had to fight through other people’s voices as well. People’s voices who were really trying to encourage me, but their yelling was warped and sounded the same as what Satan was yelling at me. I had decided at this moment and time to give my YES to Fran (the mouth piece of God), listening for her only, and my NO to everyone else, refusing to listen to them.
“You don’t want to have to do this again… You’ll never have to do this again!” Fran spoke over me when there were few minutes left to spare. She was right, I was never going to do this again, I had already decided. She spoke words of hope as God has in His word, that this life is once, and I’m never going to have to do it again.
I could see the finish line just up the little hill, and on that last stretch she grabbed the strap of my pack wrapped around my arm and pulled me up the hill to the finish.
I could really go on and on about all the many ways that this selfless, loving, woman exemplified Christ in my first 10 days of knowing her. However, this blog entry has to stop somewhere. I am truly ecstatic to have Fran as my squad mentor for the next year and to do life with her.
Not everyone gets an Ashley Francis in their life. I guess I lucked out!
Oh, and by the way… I was re-baptized, and I was honored to be able to ask her to baptize me.
