Hello friends!! Back with another blog! I know I just recently posted a blog, but I will be off the grid for at least another month once I go back to Swaziland, so I wanted to share one more while I still have WiFi!
I wanted to share what the Lord has been teaching me and really stretching me in while I have been on the race! For the last month, Jesus has really been doing quite some work on my identity and revealing to me how He views me.
During the first week in Swaziland, our host family was asking each member of our team about ourselves. During that time, I realized just how little I knew about myself. I couldn’t even answer a question as simple as “Are you an extrovert or an introvert?” I realized on that day just how much of my identity had been placed in what people categorized me as back home and none of it was coming from what I believed I said about myself or the Lord said about me. I discussed this topic with my team leader, Jaynna, and she encouraged me to ask Jesus how He viewed me and to really lean into that…so that’s what I did. During devotionals the next morning, I sat with the Lord and asked Him how he viewed me and the first thing that he said to me was “introvert.” When I heard this, I was just completely taken aback. Ummmm, introvert?? Did I just hear that right?? The answer is yes…I had indeed heard correctly. All of my life, I grew up believing that I was an extrovert and staying that I was because for some reason, I was under the impression that being an introvert was not good. I thought that introverts didn’t thrive around people and only liked to be alone, but that’s not the case whatsoever. Being an introvert simply means that you reenergize from spending time alone. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!! Anyways, I started to test that out when I had some time I could be alone, and sure enough, I found that it gave me energy! God was correct about me being an introvert and knew better than ME?? What??!!
From that day forward, I really began to press in to what Jesus had to say about me and allowing him to recreate me as a whole. Since that day, I have gotten MULTIPLE words fed into me about my identity and growth and the Lord renewing me. It has been insane. I expected the Lord to stretch me and show me pieces of myself that I never knew to be true, but I didn’t expect Him to begin to paint this picture so early in the race. Growing in identity has not been easy for me by any means and quite honestly, I have faced some fear about what the Lord renewing me looks like. Fear about what the Lord is going to strip away. Fear from knowing that He can remove things I don’t like about myself, but can also remove things I DO like about myself. It isn’t up to me. I believe that right now, the Lord is in the process of making me raw and stripping me of everything I have ever known. With rawness comes a burning sensation due to the open wound, but after this process comes a beautiful healing that is made more beautiful than before. I am so ready to receive what Jesus has in store for me and I am learning day by day that it’s about the little yes’s he gives me the opportunity to have each day. Saying yes to Jesus has been the best choice I have ever made and I’m so excited to see the portrait He paints of me.
