Our hosts this month are alumni racers, a married couple named Erinn and Nano. I feel so lucky to get to start off the race being overseen by people who know exactly how we feel and what we’re going through because they were right here in our footsteps just a couple years ago. Last night, Erin and Nano shared their stories with us. They were raw and real, and I admire that about them. They willingly and shamelessly shared their dirt from their past to 22 strangers they just met a week ago.
Erinn and Nano shared with us that there is power and freedom that comes with vulnerability—power over any past mistakes or bad choices or trauma, and freedom in releasing that weight off your shoulders and walking in the identity of who Christ made us to be. Nano asked us to think of something we’ve never told anyone—not even our parents or best friends—and asked us to consider sharing it with our team sometime this week.
We are certainly forgiven from our past if we ask the Lord, but sometimes we think we are healed when we are not. Sometimes the big, heavy chains are lifted off of us, but we still have a small fish hook stuck deep into our side covered in scars, and when we least expect it, the enemy will pull on that line—digging deep into that scar tissue and completely knocking us back over onto the other side. This is where I got hit pretty hard in the gut last night.
As I sat and thought and prayed and listened, I realized I have a lot of junk in my life that I still haven’t fully processed. Junk that I have sat with the hurt or pain or guilt or shame for a period of time, eventually told some people about it, and then shoved in a box to hopefully never deal with again. I also tend to use humor to compensate for my insecurities or to hide that something is bothering me. If I can laugh about it or get others to laugh about it, it must not be something serious in need of addressing, right?
I realized that maybe being vulnerable is harder for me than I think it is. I’m a pretty open book, and if you’re close with me (or you’re one of my 22 squad mates with me this month), you’ll quickly learn that. Just because I’m able to admit something painful or shameful to someone doesn’t mean I’m walking in freedom from it. Raw vulnerability, the kind that digs way down to the root and brings complete and total freedom is something I’m searching for this year and I didn’t even realize that until last night. I’m learning what it means to be free. I don’t know all the answers—I barely know any of the answers—but I’m slowly learning that there is power and freedom that comes with vulnerability.
With love,
Hals
