The smell of mutton, soft snores, muffled cries of goats in the distance.
Light seeping in through the half open door, closeness of wrapping arms around each others feet for lack of space, 10 of us lined up within the circumference of the structure we sleep in.
The sounds of sleep and the stillness of the morning rests over the ger. We are awoken by the giggles of our host family.
The smell of fire and the sound of water being poured into a large metal bowl, sizzling as it hits the heat marks the start of the day.
A small table is set in front of us every morning; a large thermos of tea, fresh goat cheese with bread in a metal pan and 5 small bowls.
We say thank you, and Shanzima, our Mongolian mother, brushes the words away with a little whisper and a sweet smile as she sits back down across the room to start the next thing for the day.
A true picture of simple beauty.
“A man’s wisdom brightens his face, and the sternness of his face is changed”
Ecclesiastes 8:1
Save this for later.
I shimmy out of my sleeping bag, slip on my shoes and emerge into the vast nothingness. The night before, I had stolen away from the group to a hill behind the Ger with tires sitting on top. We now call it tire hill – pretty sick right?
Would I have purchased “Captivating” had it been my own heart that felt a tug here instead of relying on the Spirit speaking through others on this one?
Always lots of questions, but never really a point in having them answered. Only more questions come.
God had asked me
“Do you think this land is beautiful?”
No, I answered.
“I will teach you to see beauty where you see harsh terrain.”
I knew there was more to that than just the land. He meant ME.
SHOCKER.
As the Earth itself is still waking, I see a teammate depart for a run as I’m walking back up to tire hill.
I clumsily step on the tire rings – there are 3 stacked with heavy rocks in the center to keep them in place.
The breeze whips my ponytail as I stare off into the distance, watching the silhouette of my teammate shrink into the hills.
I sigh and decide to walk and let my mind wander to wherever God wants it to.
I would love to relay the entirety of the conversation I had but that would make this a 4 part series at minimum. Which would be dope but I’m going for a little brevity here.
“Jelly Rolls”
Ahhhh. Yes God. What a thought.
What do I do with that?
Without any flash or fireworks or anything substantial, a wave of sorrow-filled understanding washes over my heart:
Gabriel and that fateful summer where I accepted those words as shackles over my self esteem.
I had made an internal agreement that every man from that point forward who didn’t like me, would be because I was fat and not beautiful enough. At 8 years old.
Yikes.
Through the 7 chapters of “Captivating” I had ravenously consumed the previous day, I had learned about those agreements we make with our younger selves; memories that either confirm or deny truths that God has declared over our lives from creation.
Main takeaways:
- The enemy will go HARD after Eve and her descendants because he is jealous of the beauty she posseses
- Beauty is only a shell of a word that hardly encompasses what God meant to paint in his creation of Eve
- Femininity is walking in the aforementioned image, but a beauty that can only begin within the soul
- I was created to actively be a part of an ADVENTURE. Not idle and waiting to be saved.
Ecclesiastes; back to those verses.
I thought I knew all of these concepts but, basically, only NOW was the right time for me to understand in my heart what those ideas meant; so many callouses had been tenderly removed from my heart to make this so.
A glimmer of the woman God created ME, Allison Elizabeth Vickers, to be was in sight now; not an idealized self that would prolong the suffering of this world.
“Who has told you you are not worth loving?”
No one. Technically.
“So then why do you hold onto that memory?”
I was taken back to the many years I spent confirming I was not worth loving because my size, no matter how small or large, was not what a man would desire. Some part of me was always ashamed of my body, that it wasn’t like everyone else’s.
Who knew that “Jelly Rolls” would stick with me 16 years later and I would be walking through the Mongolian wilderness chatting with God about it.
He knew. Ha.
No wonder I wasn’t feeling pulled to the desert, it’s the last place the enemy wanted me. Thank you JESUS for your spirit inside of others, because they brought me where I needed to be.
They brought me on the adventure that God wanted me to be on.
I gave that memory to God and asked for peace to fill the space.
So in summation:
I’m on a journey to recapture my understanding of femininity and beauty—something I never lost but, convinced myself was buried too far beneath the surface to be reached.
I have no idea what that looks like but these last three days God has taken my hand and pulled me into a whirlwind of adventure that looked many ways. Walking for miles in a desert with him, to trying to figure out how to go to the bathroom on a hill with (seemingly)5000mph wind, to seeing baby camels and even watching cooked sheep eyeballs be used as bouncy balls against a removable glass window… what? Lol
It’s an adventure nonetheless and I was created to be an accomplice to the wild and untamed God of our universe.
And so were you.
Wow.
Whewwwww.
What a concept.
You never know when God will yank ya into a desert to show you a piece of His heart and whisper
“delight in my creation for it is yours, beloved” to your soul.
Read my next blog about Mongolia for a better image of the wild I was describing – it’s a place unlike any other.
Pray for this journey and for fundraising as we are still pushing for our whole squad to be fully funded this month!
Lots and lots of love!
