(let it be noted that most girls GAIN weight on the World Race. Unlike most girls, I had plenty of it to lose before we left. my story isn't a usual one, but it's a good one, filled with the grace of God and His redemption in an otherwise hopeless life…mine.)
I held my breath and wriggled into the tan shorts that I had picked up off the drop pile. Doubtful, I buttoned and zipped myself up…and gasped. “They FIT? They actually fit??”
When I left for the World Race, I was at least 100 pounds overweight and absolutely miserable. There were moments where I felt comfortable in my own skin, but more often than not, I loathed myself. My lack of self-control was deplorable, my emotional eating out of control.
Eleven months later, I stepped off of the plane a new woman. 40 of the pounds I had left with didn’t come back with me. Most of my hair was gone due to a God encounter in India. And that wasn’t all I lost…
All the way back at training camp, one of my trainers shared the following vision she had about me:
“I saw you disappearing. Your feet went first, and then all the way up until all that was left was your head, and I stopped the vision. God said, ‘Let Me finish,’ and I said, ‘No! I don’t want her to disappear. I don’t want her to feel invisible.” “And He said, ‘I’m not going to make her invisible. I’m going to erase everything that she thinks is her identity. I’m going to give her new eyes, new ears, a new mouth, a new heart.”
True to the word God spoke over me, He erased me. Six months into my race, He leveled the house I had so carefully built, demolishing my very “self” into countless pieces. In a matter of minutes, everything I thought I ever knew about myself was gone. I would never be able to put myself back together.
This was when God stepped in to rebuild me…from the ground up, weaving threads of His character, heart, and nature into mine.
Now, 11 months, 40 pounds, and 6 inches of hair later, I can honestly say I am not the same person. I don’t look like her, I don’t sound like her, and I don’t act like her. There are days where she starts to resurface, but then I remember that she’s dead. I survived, my new self resurrected to life with Jesus. I pray that He will make me less and less, and that He will be greater and greater in me.
Month 1 me
after my new haircut
post-race
Thank you for sharing the journey with me! the best is still yet to come.
-Anna
