When people asked me what I wanted to get out of the World Race before I left I consistently told them, “I want to learn how to love.” Most people were confused or taken back when I said this. I don’t think I even fully understood what I was saying, I just knew that the Lord had a plan to walk me through love on this trip.
I am going to share something deep with y’all. For most of my life I never understood what it meant to live out of love. Every family, house, or adult I was faced with when I was a child, they never lived from a place of love. I learned quickly that being kind and loving wasn’t going to get me very far and slowly I realized that all of those venerable feelings started to be shoved down into a very small box. I learned to protect myself with hardness and not letting people become too close to me, because the closer they were, the more they could hurt me. Over the years I realized that I forget how to genuinely love people. I was quick to be defensive and keep my walls up. I realized that some of myself had harden over from the years.
So coming on the Race I knew that I had this hardness but I still think I didn’t fully understand it. So once I got on the Race I knew I wanted to grow in love but I never knew how hard it would be to get there. Immediately the Lord started working on my heart through this. At first I was defensive with teammates, I was quick to think the worse in people, and I would always rather fight with anger than love any day of the week. I thought that as long as I could keep my fists up nothing could hurt me. If anyone wanted to battle with me I was ready for it because I had been beaten on all my life, and they definitely weren’t going to be the last. That is how I was ready to fight battles on the Race. It was all I knew.
That quickly fell apart as I was shown grace and kindness and love from people all around me. I wanted to be hard when I felt trials coming. I never wanted to be weak, but I learned that I was loosing every battle, because only love truly wins. It didn’t happen right away. I failed, a lot, but the Lord and my teammates gave me a ton of grace. To be truthful it was a slow and painful process some of the time. I didn’t like the feeling of being kind at first, it was opening doors for people to walk right over me, but I have such a great community that showed the same kindness. The more I stepped into the love that the Lord had for me, I realized that I became free. Free from the bondage that I had put around myself.
The Lord has been breaking down everyone of the walls I have put up over the years. Not in a away that has made me weak, but actually I am stronger because of it. It is much harder to love people no matter what, than to close yourself off to everyone. I learned that not everyone was trying to hurt me and that I could be venerable with people. I don’t have to be defensive when people give me feedback and try and call me higher to what the Lord has for me. God has opened up my heart to my friends, my family, and Him. I now can wholeheartedly live out of a place of love and not anger and hardness. It is refreshing to finally be at this place. I labeled myself as “angry one” but the Lord calls me “kind one.”
Thank you Lord for this life changing adventure. He truly has great plans for me. He met me where I was but He loves me so much that He was not going to leave me there. Through this trip the Lord taught me how to love. Now I know, forever.
