I’ve been through counseling two different times, first when I was 18, and again this past year. My first counselor had me create a safe place in my mind to which I could go to when life became overwhelming to me.
The safe place I created was a field of yellow flowers. Millions of them, almost as far as they eye could see. Just beyond that, a line of trees that fully surrounded the field that created a secluded, safe meadow hidden within the forest. In the exact center of the yellow flowers is a large tree that stands alone, full of green leaves that provides the perfect amount of shade from the sun and a sturdy trunk I can rest up again.
I used this safe place a lot when I first started counseling, but over the years, my life got busy and I started getting better so I stopped using it. In fact, after awhile, I forgot about it completely until Training Camp for the Race.
Training Camp was a rather momentous time for me. God took that week of my life to truly heal me of many of the wounds I still carried around from my childhood. God took the beat-up, abused child inside of me and restored the joy and innocence that had been taken away from me at such a young age.
One evening session, the speakers told all of us to settle in, close our eyes, and be open to the Holy Spirit and whatever He wanted to do within us over the next hour. During this time, the staff was free to roam around to all of us and pray as they felt led.
One staff member (I will probably never know who he was) knelt down beside me and began to pray for me and speak prophetic words over me. All of it was significant, but one of the first things he said to me was, “Your Daddy loves you and is so proud of you.”
As soon as he said this, I got an extraordinarily clear vision in my mind. Again, I was in my safe place, but this time I was a child and in place of the tree stood Jesus with His arms stretched out towards me. [“Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men, I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to my taste.” Song of Songs 2:3]
Without hesitation, (for possibly the first time in my life), I ran full-speed through the yellow flowers and jumped into the arms of God. When I reached Him, Jesus picked me up and began to spin me around as I squealed out of excitement and delight…pure joy came rushing out of me in that moment.
This vision God gave me is the exact relationship I want to have with Him, and since Training Camp, yellow flowers have become God’s reminder to me of His love for me.
Fast forward to a couple days ago. The JoyBombs have only been in Xenacoj, Guatemala a few days and that morning our contact, Herman, said he was going to take us up the mountain where you can overlook the town so we could pray and worship God together.
It all sounded great, except for one problem; I had woken up that morning feeling absolutely miserable. My heart ached and I could figure out why. I was having thoughts that I didn’t fit in my team, that I wasn’t really a part of them, that no one saw me or cared to get to know me, and I just wanted to lay in my bed and cry.
Instead, though, I got in the van and went up to the mountain with my team. The view up on the mountain was stunning; you could see the entire town from where we stood.
But it was this view that took my breath away.
Yellow flowers. Thousands of them. With a line of trees behind them.
And I instantly hear the words, “I love you and it’s all okay” as if God had just whispered them in my ear.
My sour mood lifted instantly and I began to tear as waves of God’s love crashed over me.
The Lord gave me my yellow flowers, exactly when I needed them. He knows my heart so well, and goes out of His way to pour His love out upon me. He romances my heart and shows me affection in ways so unique to my relationship with Him.
Before leaving for the Race, I had been praying that this year would be a year of growing in intimacy with God as I fall more in love with Him. Those yellow flowers on the mountainside above the random town in Guatemala that I “just so happened” to be chosen to go to tells me that God feels the same way. Those flowers are a promise that He plans to woe me ever so greatly this next year. And I am so excited for what’s to come!
