About 5 months ago on social media I announced I was leaving everything I know to go on the World Race which is 11 countries in 11 months and during that time we work with ministries in each country and live in community with other believers. I will be living in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, India, Nepal, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. Each month we will be working various ministry hosts and occasionally my team and I will simply go wherever we feel Holy Spirit is leading us.
This past week in preparation to leave I went to Training Camp in Gainesville, Georgia. Ever since I have been on such a spiritual high because God taught me so much in a brief amount of time. That makes me super excited for this next year and all that He will teach me.
During one of our many sessions the speaker was talking about forgiveness and challenged us to think about who in our life we had yet to forgive. I was struck to the core that night but also scared to share my emotions with people I had literally met a few hours prior. Holy Spirit showed me I was still holding on the shame of my sins before I received Christ as my Savior. Even though I knew that God had forgiven me and that the people I had hurt had also forgiven me, I was still beating myself up over my actions. At the last minute, Holy Spirit said “go” during the alter call. So, I left my seat and went over to one of the camp staff and told them I could NOT forgive myself and that there would be days I still cried over how I treated my family and caused so much pain. That night she prayed over me and spoke the Lords truth into my life. There hasn’t been a perfect change overnight where I completely let go of that shame but I can say that the TRUTH has been speaking LOUDER than the lies that say I am still unforgiven and that I deserve to live in my shame.
Throughout ALL of training camp I was taught to BE BOLD. BE COURAGEOUS. BE VULNERABLE. During this whole process, I knew God was teaching me to live life fearlessly but I couldn’t imagine how. Yes, living in 11 countries over the next 11 months does take a certain level of bravery but God wants me to learn so much more. The last day of camp we had a story telling session that focused on different ways to blog and share life with everyone back home. I have had such a hard time with this…hence why this is my very first blog post.
I love writing but I HATE letting people read what I write. I am afraid of being judged, I compare myself to others, and I don’t understand how God can use ME and MY story for his kingdom. But, God created us each to have our own individual and unique story so of course my blog will be different. Therefore, I don’t need to compare my life and my posts with anyone else’s. Additionally, God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7) which means all the fear I have right now as I write this is not from Him and He doesn’t call us to perfection. Therefore, God can use us and our horrible sentence structure to further his kingdom!
I am so excited to share what else God is teaching me over the next year so I invite you to subscribe to blog and follow along as I travel and share the good news with people all over the world!! J
