Before you begin reading, this is not a recent story but still important and a big part of my race. I will be writing about a lot of things not chronologically but I will be sure to let you know when and where each took place until I catch up to writing about more recent things. -Be Blessed
Coming to the end of month 4 everything changes. We have team changes, leadership changes, and we also change the continent. In this case, we were leaving Asia to go to Africa for the next 3 months. This is also a time in the race where things become really normal. It doesn’t take a long time to adjust and get used to the next country, we kinda get a routine down. Travel is just apart of life.
With all of the change happening, we have a debrief to talk about all the good things this far, all the hard things, and all the ways we can go into this next season of the race with a ‘yes’ in our spirits, to grow, and learn more about ourselves and about God then we already have. Debrief was in Baguio City, Philippines on the beautiful beach of the South China Sea.
So the question is, what does it take to walk forward into what God is doing in this next season? Let me be honest with you: it takes me a hot second to process the past, much less step forward into a new season with a big ‘yes’, especially when it looks different then I thought. So I spent the majority of debrief talking to God trying to sort things out.
I came to the conclusion of TRUST. Sometimes God does things and I don’t understand. More times then not actually. I decided to trust God with my whole heart, to say ‘yes’ to the things he may have for me in this next season.
“Father, I want to step out of this debrief with a firm ‘yes’ to all of the
things you have for me and say that I am. But more importantly
I want to say ‘no’ to the lies that I have believed about myself and step
forward with full confidence in who you say I am. The plans
You have for me are so much better then anything that I could come
up with for myself. Father, renew my mind, renew my life and
teach me about myself and who you are. I can’t wait the see what you do.”
Soon after I wrote this and made this decision and promise with God there was an announcement about sunset baptisms being had at the beach.
The idea of being baptized on the race didn’t cross my mind once in the past 4 months or prior. If anything, I thought, “I can’t wait to witness baptisms on the race! I can’t even put into words what an honor it would be to witness people that are so near to my heart step into freedom in such a tangible way.” After a deep breath and smile at Gods goodness, the thought pasted and was out of my mind. But now I would get to be apart of it.
Imagine my surprise when the Lord told me to get baptized and be apart of the baptisms that way.
For those of you who know me, you know that I was baptized in 10th grade. It was a great experience and step in my life. I had prayed about it for quite some time and felt like the Lord was calling me to partake in this journey.
I would say being baptized was a time where I took my faith and declared in front of my family and friends that I loved Jesus with all my heart and wanted him to transform my life. It was a time where i said ‘yes’ to what the Lord was calling me into.
You see now why baptism wasn’t on my radar. I had already been baptized and its not usually something people do lots of times. However, the more it was brought up the more I felt the Lord telling me to get baptized.
I felt his still, small voice saying, “Daughter, if this is a choice that you are making for yourself, then here is your opportunity to be washed clean of the past, of the lies of the enemy, and verbally declare, in front of the entire squad, your decision to say ‘yes’ to giving everything you have into the rest of the race and also the rest of your life. Giving yourself fully to me so that I can move in bigger ways then you can imagine.”
So there I was with boldness and vulnerability, stepping up in front of everyone and declaring what God was going to do in my life and said ‘yes’ to him. I disagreed with any lie and as I emerged into the water, stepping boldly into freedom.
There is also something so beautiful and powerful about waves. The way that they tower, and crash over you. They have so much power but also allow you to be apart of what they are doing and where they are going. Being washed and transformed by being dunked into waves was beautiful. I felt so much power from the Lord thrusting out of the South China Sea, leaving everything that wasn’t from the Lord under the water as I came up. I felt so renewed and in that choosing to act out that truth of being renewed.
I left debrief with an excitement to go forward, with a renewed heart filled with joy, with the knowledge that the world race is the safest place to fail and an excitement to do so. To try and to fail and be happy because I stepped out in boldness for what God was telling me to do. Most of all, ready for all thing that the Lord has for me in this next season.
