Hello everyone! As many of you know, I went to training camp for the World Race in Gainesville, Georgia on July 9th and I returned on July 19th. It is because of all of you that I was able to go to camp; therefore, I feel like you guys deserve some details about camp and all that it entailed. By the title, I am sure you can gather what the main focus of this blog will be; however, I want to share some other information about camp!
Camp was full of new experiences for me, including but not limited to… sleeping in a tent and making sure to keep out the ABUNDANCE of daddy long-legs, bucket-showers, eating crickets and eating century eggs. ALSO, getting acclimated to the humidity in Georgia was a tad difficult for me, but hey, I managed! Aside from all of these new experiences, I also got to FINALLY meet my squad and find out who my team consisted of! My team is a group of 7 girls including myself, and we also have the most amazing team leader, Jaynna, that will be on the field with us for the first 3 months of the race. I feel so extremely blessed by my team and our leader. These girls have so much wisdom and are on fire for the Lord. I can’t wait to have them by my side for the next 9 months!!! Throughout camp, I had the opportunity to see the Lord move in ways I never had. He absolutely demolished the box I had Him in prior to camp. I was and still am in awe of the way the Lord revealed Himself to me and everyone else at camp and I am so excited to give you a taste of my encounter with the Lord.
Through the course of camp, people were hearing the Holy Spirit speak to them left and right. Some people were hearing direct speaking. Some had words spoken over them by other campers or leadership that perfectly aligned with what they had been praying for or previously spoken about in private. Some had or were given visions. There were multiple ways the Lord was speaking to people…and it truly was an amazing sight to see.
On the other hand, there were several people that were struggling quite a bit because they felt as if the Lord was being silent and was refraining from speaking to them. Unfortunately, I was one of those people. This was difficult to process because every day, I was witnessing people having breakthroughs and huge revelations…yet nothing was happening to me, or so I thought. Nobody came up to me and gave me a word that left a mark on me. Worship was absolutely amazing, but nothing in it was directly resonating with me. I didn’t hear anything from the Lord that took my breath away. And initially, this was all very discouraging. My thoughts were something along the lines of “Lord, why are you not moving through ME?” “God, do you not have ANYTHING to speak over me?” “Why is everybody else experiencing something, but not me? What do I need to do?” What I was failing to notice was that I was centering everything around myself. When the Lord speaks to us, does it have to be about ourselves in order for it to be His voice? Absolutely not.
One night, I was voicing my thoughts to my friend Karson about what I was experiencing and how I almost felt left out because I wasn’t hearing the Lord’s voice. I shared with her how all week, the Lord had been giving me words to speak over people, along with one vision, but I didn’t understand why I hadn’t been hearing anything for myself. From my perspective, God was keeping quiet. Despite, how I had been feeling, my thoughts quickly changed once Karson gave me her feedback. She told me something that roughly went “Gracelyn. You keep saying that you don’t feel like you are hearing from the Lord, yet you are telling me about all of these words and visions you are having for other people that are being affirmed. I am not getting words or visions for other people…you ARE hearing from the Lord. He has given you that this week.” BINGO!! Although it may not have come across this way in the moment, my mind was blown when she said that. THEN, later on in the week, one of my teammates told me almost the same thing! I was like…”Okay God, I get it. I get it. You are speaking to me…it doesn’t have to be about me.”
So often, I forget that this mission is not about me and has never been about me. The Lord was trying to grow the people He spoke to through me by affirming what they were going through and letting them know that He saw them. BUT, he was also trying to grow me by helping me to recognize what His voice sounds like and choosing to be obedient by acting upon what He said to me. I think so often, we choose to see God how we want to and won’t allow Him to reveal Himself in a different way. Clearly, I was under the impression that the Lord’s voice was going to sound one way and that He would stretch me by speaking to me about ME. Once I allowed myself to hear Him speak to me the way He desired to, I truly began to see His beauty unfold and I am so thankful for that. Today, I challenge you to allow God to speak to you the way HE wants to and to have open ears. Yes, God can move in extravagant ways and speak in extravagant ways, but sometimes, the sweetest sounds come from the softest, unexpected voice.
