This last week I have been in Siem Rep for debrief and it has been an amazing time of reflecting with the Lord and my team. God has shown me so much from this last month.
One thing that I really struggled with this past month was my team. Many of them have had difficult family experiences, which thankfully is not the case for me. My family has been amazing all my life, parents that love each other and love me deeply. So as a squad there is a lot of talk about reclaiming the name family. When ever people said that I would get mad or defensive in my heart because I love my family so much and would never want to replace them.
In our team debrief the question was brought up, “how close are you guys to feeling like a family?” And right away I thought so so so far from it. I told my team how I was feeling about not replacing my family and they made me realize that I can have a second or new family. I can bring the parts of my family that I love so deeply into my new family. This is a simple thought that they helped me realize. I then sat with the Lord asking him what parts of my family I should bring in:
- The deep love my parents have for each of us. They cry when we leave, encourage us in who we are, laugh with us and push us further.
- All us siblings hang out together all the time. We all love each others friends and all hangout.
- I love how we all learn about Jesus together and discuss it together and push each other deeper in what we learned
- We have all been impacted and inspired by similar people
- They come along side my passions and we push each other in those
- We all encourage and support each other well because my parents have always been so supportive
- We WANT to hangout with each other
- It has been taught and passed down to us to bring joy and love through hospitality
- We have always been involved
- Always pursued and maintained deep community
After I had this time with Jesus I realized how much my family cares for me and how much I care for them.
Since I have been gone, I have had a lot more wifi access then I thought, and in that have gotten to talk to my family a lot. I love talking and sharing what is happening in my life so I have loved and valued those times deeply. But in talking to them I have realized I would share things with them that I had not shared with my team, I would vent if I was annoyed with my team, or just go to them for the affirmation that I wasn’t receiving from my team. In that, I was missing out from choosing my team fully and pursuing this new family culture.
A couple nights ago God asked me to not talk to anyone from home for a month starting Monday, which is going to be so so hard for me. And telling my team and family was so emotional because I know it will be hard for everyone but so good and fruitful. I am excited to press into my Father and into my team this next month.
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