“Someone whose words hold meaning to you.”
“Someone who is a natural born leader.”
“Someone who has made you cry laughing.”
“Someone who you will never forget.”
“Someone who is going to change the world.”
“Someone whose smile brightens up the room.”
“Someone who makes you better because you are around them.”
The statements got thrown around last night during a debrief session and the exercise was to simply encourage and touch someone who had been some of these things to us throughout the year. This was an exercise that was not foreign to me. I was in group one, so I was the one touching the shoulders of my squad mates first with other people. Once the first round of statements finished, it was my turn to face outward, close my eyes, feel the holy spirit, and allow myself to be encouraged and touched by different squad mates in the room.
The gravity of any statement and touch can change a life.
I am not excited to admit this to anyone, but here it is: I bought into the lie that I was not seen by anyone but my immediate team mates and the people I was sharing writing with all year. I believed the lie that I didn’t make impact in the other people I knew throughout the Squad. I kept believing the lie that I needed a label in order to be considered a leader or to be seen. And you know what happened? God completely shattered all those lies with every statement and every touch of encouragement by my family of squad mates.
The truth is that people SEE. People notice. People are watching me whether I’ve got a label placed upon me or not. The truth is that there are people who are going to stick with me through every season — high and low — and they are going to care when I am doing great and they will still care even when I’m not. There are people that will only ever see potential in me and there are people who are going to push me until I reach it, they will lead me on the path toward what it looks like to be living a life completely sold out to Christ.
This year, I have been invested in, poured into and poured out, and told about the potential I have. The idea that I even had potential to reach didn’t hit me until about Month 8 where I began to pick the pieces of my heart up with the Lord, actually accepted that there were real pieces to be picked up and that they were WORTHY of being picked up. I let people in for the first time and they saw and read about the ugly-side-of-me. These people were people I believed would leave if they saw or read about the ugly, unfinished, and totally unfiltered me. But they stuck by me and told me they loved me despite all the crap. These people told me I still had more to go and didn’t want to see me settle. These people will not let me settle — even now — that this “World Race Journey” has ended.
The truth and spirit manifested itself in tears falling out of my eyes like a very loud and sobbing river. It’s one thing to be the encouraging person because I’m good at it and see the goodness in others and their potential, but it’s another journey entirely to begin seeing it in myself and walking in the truth and light boldly. It’s, furthermore, a journey of accepting the truth and allowing others to speak into that life and light that they see in me.
If I could personally sum up this year in anything, that’s what it would be for me.
Looking back now, when I heard the “intimacy with the father is the most important thing in your life” talk during our first debrief in Rwanda, I didn’t believe it. Ten months later, I hear it now and I know it as the deepest truth that could ever have been put on my heart this year by the Father.
I don’t need to justify a thing that has happened this year and I don’t need to justify what I learned on the Race. I don’t need to justify taking a day to rest if I need it. I don’t need to justify tears, crying, and all-the-feels that will be coming in the next few weeks (or the opposite). I don’t need to justify if things change within the first couple weeks of being home regarding the “what’s next” factor because this is the only truth that matters:
I am, have been, and always will be justified by the blood of Christ who died on the cross for me and for all of you and my deepest desire walking forward is to follow in step with His will for my life in intimacy with Him, and my bet is that He’s got some pretty nifty stuff up His sleeve!
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I’m coming home in a couple days, so this is my last blog post internationally for a while, but it’s definitely not the end! :]
~A
