The beginning of this saga unfortunately dates back to October 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia, at “Launch,” when my squad and I prepared to leave for the World Race. I say unfortunately because the amount of time that has passed since October may or may not act as an indicator of the length of this blog. If I refer to my typical monthly blogs as novels, I am not entirely sure the classification for this blog — perhaps thesis. However, I will acknowledge that if there has been one blog I have known with certainty I would write, it is this one. My subconscious realization of this fact, as I said, has been since October, even though I had not yet consciously brought this “heaviness” I will be discussing from the darkness and into the light. I will admit, in my desire for a good story — a struggle, a climax, and a resolve — I had planned that this blog would come at the very close of the race, that it would have a deeper and more satisfying resolution, and that the overall theme would ing triumphant.
However, as I strongly feel God has asked me to write this now, in a time in which I find myself as quagmired in the mess as ever before, I fear the reality of this blog will be a monotone drone of struggle offering limited insight and zero resolution. Yet, I sit in a van on a troublingly bumpy Rwandan road that leads from this country to the next, determined to convey the story, the struggle, and the faithfulness of God through it.
So, as I recognize the foreboding nature of this long-winded introduction, I will begin.
Before my squad and I left for South America, we were each given a chain necklace with a key attached to it. Each key was engraved with a word — family, grace, journey, etc. Having intentionally prayed over each key’s recipient, the facilitator handed each of us our individual key. We were told to continue pondering and praying for the message God might want to communicate through the word, and to hold onto the necklace until ready to give it away, symbolic of one’s understanding of the meaning, as well as the word’s exemplification in the following owner. For this pass-it-on intent behind the necklaces, they are aptly named, “giving keys.” I distinctly remember the key in my hand, skeptical of the entire vision, then glancing down to read the word, “free.” As I read the engraved word on the key, I experienced a heart-sinking moment in which my inner self seemed to understand a certain truth that my mind and perhaps my “rest of self” could not consciously address. Yet, I knew. Denying any level of significance, though, I glanced up to meet the eyes of anxiously anticipating family to announce the unaffecting, overall mild word I had been given.
The race began, and the “free key” continued to loosely shift in the bottom of my pack with the resident wrappers, sand, and dirt, untouched and unaddressed. In the first month, a teammate asked me what it meant for me to pick up my cross every day and follow Jesus. Again, a familiar occurrence of inner recognition and response overridden by the mind’s denial, leading to an external result of answering absentmindedly, “I don’t know.” Yet, I knew.
The close of Chile and introduction of Argentina came a maintenance of the status quo, attempting to satisfy God’s invitation and encouragement to me (an invitation that, of course, extends to all mankind) in month one to put Him first, while still lacking an essential ingredient in the recipe for total surrender. A friend in Argentina gave me a word she had felt the Lord prompted her to give: “Whatever you do, whatever you base your decisions on, let it be God who is the reason.” In addition, she read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
“So don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself for you were bought at a high price. So honor the God with your body.”
Again, an inner tug I had then begun to recognize as gentle conviction from the Holy Spirit. I responded with a smile and a “thank you,” continually being softened to the truth God was unveiling, as he pulled back one portion of the draping shadowing the canvas inch by inch. And I knew.
There were interspersed moments and conversations in the months to follow that instigated fleeting yet provoking conviction, as God continued to break me down and strip me of all defenses until it was finally time. My hiding from God could no more be sustained.
In a humbling occasion of great significance, I sat by the pool of a hostel in Cambodia with Jaclyn, a teammate who had become a close friend, feeling the weight of my sin within simultaneous experiences of recognition and acknowledgement of that which had served as an obstacle and idol before God, disgust at the perpetuity of human depravity, and repentance for incomplete surrender.
As I have referenced in a previous blog about the intention behind my tattoo, it will most likely not be unforeseen to anyone reading that the glaring idol in my life — the dark shadow that followed and concealed the “more” of my relationship with God — was my body. For years, since the first year of college, I had been dragging a suitcase behind me whose contents were perfectionism, control, identity, and idolatry. While I partially identified the reality of my prioritization of food and exercise above God in my life previously, the moment of surrender in Cambodia was unlike any formerly experienced. It was a white-flag-up, arms empty, pointed upward, head bowed, heart repentant surrender. It was giving up a hiding place God already knew existed. It was a knees-on-ground earnest plea that the Lord would take my thorn. It was opened eyes, a decisive turning point, a hammer-in-hand march toward the golden calf as I smashed it to pieces.
If only that moment of triumph lasted forever.
That night has become my most significant memory on the race. My pride had been chipped away to bring me to a position ready to humbly accept a struggle not yet conquered. God brought me around the world to see the glaring reality of control and identity manifested in the painful reality of body image.
And finally I knew what it would mean to be free. Finally I desired nothing more than to have a heart wholly aligned with God and to have thoughts that pull me closer to Him rather than away. Finally I knew I had been a slave to two masters and I no longer wanted anything to do with the one.
I will not soon forget the following day. I spent the entire day alone with God, and had an insatiable hunger for His Word, which is how I feel Him speaking to me most tangibly. I was led to 2 Corinthians 5, and immediately convicted by verse 14:
“Whatever we do it is because Christ’s love controls us.”
I resolved that this biblical truth would become a mantra for my life. I committed every decision to be controlled by God rather than my body.
My determination to be made new was met with exceedingly high expectations as you may have surmised. And the months that followed were met with significant and noteworthy realizations led by God about the deep issue of control and body image. To my dismay, many more moments were characterized by obsessive thoughts that pulled me away from God. They felt all too familiar, like an unwanted visitor whose knock could not be drowned out. I felt the weight of the free key and so desperately wanted to rip it from myself and give it to someone else in a moment of cathartic victory. I commiserated deeply with Paul’s thorn in the flesh and begged God to take it from me.
However, each month I experienced the faithfulness and gentle leading of the Lord. I addressed the perfectionism that began to infect my relationship with God, and the truth that I will never be perfect in my unredeemed, earthly body. I thank God that He has revealed the foundation upon which my identity rested — and still has a tendency to rest — contrasted against the foundation it should be built upon. Through the gentle, Holy Spirit guided questions of friends and teammates, I have evaluated the love I have for myself as well as the basis and sustainability of that love. I have diagnosed my love for myself as conditional and burdensome, and ultimately and most importantly, as a reflection of the love I understand is given to me from God.
These discoveries about my own struggle are vital to the overall narrative of God’s character and the gentle manner in which He has led me. However, the recurring theme is a two-steps-forward, one-step-back pattern. A tattoo written on my body to serve as a reminder of His place in my life, then a barrage of consuming thoughts or behaviors that lead me down an unfulfilling path. For instance, there was a time in Romania when I desired more time reading the Bible in the morning, and despite feeling as if God was saying,
“Just take a walk with me,”
my flesh in all of its obsessive compulsiveness won, and I adhered to the routine of my morning run after reading the Bible. It is challenging for me to convey the nature of these thoughts’ obsessiveness and negativity, but I assure you that they draw me no closer to trusting the truth of my Heavenly Father.
And now we are brought to this month. I still lug around my free key and struggle with the question of what being free of this means. I grapple with how to honor the Lord with my body, understanding it to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, while navigating the balance between finding identity in it. A question I repeatedly bring to the Lord is “What is caring but not caring too much?” I yearn to find the balance of healthy diet and exercise while refusing to allow these lifestyles to provide a foothold for idolatry. I experienced an invitation to navigate such a balance this month as we arrived to our ministry site. As we drove in, the first thought on my mind that would not cease centered around the limited space, and certainty that there was absolutely no room to do any form of exercise. Again, immediate conviction was introduced for the priority this thought held in my mind, and its ability to overshadow any thankfulness for the place we were that month. I felt God had given me the space to experience balance. However, as my OCD nature took hold, I found room to do daily exercises — even if only 20 minutes a day. Nevertheless, I once more slipped into routine.
As the days of July turned to weeks, a general unrest in my core grew, progressing to an emotional fusion of complacency and frustration with God. After processing through the potential instigators of such inner confusion, I realized I felt spiritually dry. I felt as if God had asked me to let Him lead me to an oasis, yet I had stubbornly continued trudging through the desert. This general impression was confirmed when Jaclyn told me that while praying for me she felt the Holy Spirit had told her that there is more for me, further, that God has more for me. As the words escaped her mouth I had full knowledge of what I was being asked to do. I surrendered the unease to God and asked Him to explicitly tell me what He wanted me to do, asking Jaclyn to pray about it as well, consistently insecure in whether I fully understand what God speaks to me.
In the midst of this prayer, I received a notification that I had not completed a “journey marker” (essentially questions to reflect on sent by our squad mentor on a weekly basis). I absentmindedly flipped to the passage discussed in the questions, and my eyes immediately found the underlined verse from Cambodia:
“Whatever we do it is because Christ’s love controls us.”
As if i was in two moments in time simultaneously, I felt both the weight of conviction from this verse in the past and the confirmation of that which I knew God was asking of me in the present. After speaking with Jaclyn, her encouragement to give something up to gain something new rang with a resounding call to sacrifice.
God was requesting that I sacrifice routine and fast exercise. I was not certain, however, so I decided to wait However, the next morning, I had no peace about exercising which, for those who know how I function in routine, is confirmation in and of itself. Thus, I embarked on a new venture that has been nothing less than painful. That morning, I finally accepted His invitation to go on a walk with Him, and while speaking with Him aloud, surrendered my routine and ongoing struggle to Him. I asked Him to use the fast, whether He had called me into it or not. Although I admit nothing mind-blowingly revolutionary has resulted from this small step of obedience — thoughts still plague, fears still haunt — I have experienced a deeper level of connection to my Father than I have ever before. In the past week and a half I have broken free of my every morning routine of reading the Bible for a select amount of time, as I now go on countless walks in which I speak aloud with Him or play my guitar, singing about Him.
While the thorn is still very much in my side, I am beginning to acknowledge the truth that He will neither abandon nor forsake me regardless. The moments in which I have recited (in modern day paraphrasing) Romans 7:14-25 have been far too many to count. Yet this is the story. It is a story of human mess and ultimate need for a Savior. It is a story with the message of freedom through Christ even if such freedom remains only known and trust without being fully felt until the second coming.
And one more final note.
Jaclyn felt nudged to let me borrow her key for the last month. Her key says “grace.” This next month I exchange the struggle to find freedom for solid confidence in grace.
While this resolution feels temporary and imperfect, I trust the permanence in the perfection to come.
