When thinking about training camp, I’m sure sombreros, shame, and spiritual warfare are not at the top of your list of things that I learned from. However, when I think back upon training camp those are the first three things that pop into my mind–here is why.
First I want to say that training camp was absolutely amazing and looking back I loved every second… well most of the seconds. But, like my tattoo says, “Stay For The Good Seconds,” I did and every “bad second” that I had, whether it be when I missed home, when felt like I was falling apart at the seams, or when I was gasping for air after completing a 2.2 mile hike in 37.5 minutes (NOTE: We had to do this hike in under 38 minutes, otherwise we had to redo the hike.), was absolutely worth it.
So… shame and spiritual warfare are not easy topics to want to talk about, and even harder to articulate the correct words for what I want to say. But here is where I am trying, so bear with me and we will stumble through my thoughts together.
To begin, I should let you know that during the beginning of training camp I seriously considered coming home. I was unsure of whether or not the race was where God truly wanted me–although, after lots of prayer, I do believe the race is where I should be as well as where God wants me. However, my worst night–I believe it was the 4th or 5th night there, I was 95% sure I wanted to go home the next morning. However, after freaking out to one of my leaders, Teresa, she encouraged me to listen to that night’s session and to then pray and ask God very directly if this was where He wanted me to be. And loandbehold, that sessions talk was over spiritual warfare and how to listen to God and know you are where He leads you to.
Even though I did not gain some massive breakthrough during that session, it did affirm the ways I was going about trying to “figure this out.” So I was still very unsure after the session and I decided to spend a chunk of that late night digging into the Word and praying and looking up whatever I felt led to look up. I began by just praying and looking up different keywords in my bible’s concordance. Eventually I was led around to an old devotional I wrote over the Trinity and the different attributes of each God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Within that devotional I read over/reminded myself of an aspect of the Holy Spirit in that when you need something He will be there for you in whatever way you need Him; but sometimes the way you need Him is not easy and He will be there to provide you an opportunity for growth rather than just handing it to you on a silver platter–you have to CHOOSE to follow His calling/path for you life. That was revelation number 1 of the night for me.
Revelation number 2 came quickly after and came from the same devotional actually. At the end, I referenced a blog post from one my my sister’s squad mates, from when they were on the race together–Kayla Zilch. This then led to me revisiting her world race blog, kaylazilch.theworldrace.org, where I red one of her posts over spiritual warfare, and during that two specific things hit me. 1) Satan knows the bible and can misuse bible verses against you. 2) He was also using my own fears and insecurities against me. How, you might ask?
Well, through shame. And this is where my heart begins to race before I even type anything; where my mind begins to think of anything else I could be doing; and where a very large portion of my body just wants to move my right hand up and to the right and press down the backspace button until this entire blog post is erased. However, I will try to explain it the best I can.
So, how was Satan able to use my own fears and insecurities against me you might ask? We it’s because he’s able to exploit every fear no matter how logical/rational it may seem–what must be remembered, is that if it is God’s call for your life He WILL provide for you.
Something that quite a few people know about me (but many don’t) is that stemming from a neurological disorder I was born with I have a condition called neurogenic bladder, which as you may have guessed by the name, affects my bladder. What this does to me specifically, is cause me to have extremely minimal control over my bladder muscles for which I use a self-catheter to urinate and have a minimal window of time from the moment I know I need to go to the bathroom and when I HAVE to get to a bathroom otherwise I will either urinate myself or I will pass out. And for the record, if I run more than roughly 5 steps or jump even once I will also urinate some so that 2.2 mile hike with all of our gear I mentioned earlier (the one that I made time for with only 30 seconds to spare, thanks to some amazing girls who literally grabbed my hands and carried me up the last hill) had another edge to it for me.
So, if you can’t figure out why, as a 24 year old girl who has dealt with this her entire life, I would like to keep it hush-hush, just take my word for it–I always viewed it as just something I was extremely embarrassed about, but nothing more. However, during one of our sessions about shame I realized that this was really something I was ashamed about. Yes, I can get embarrassed about it, but really I was ashamed about it because at times I can resent others and/or myself because being able to control your bladder is something a 4 year old knows how to do, so what’s my excuse as a 24 year old? (Yes, I know my ever-growing medical history file is plenty of an excuse, but nonetheless, our minds don’t always work rationally.)
Therefore, through this blog and already being fairly open with my squad mates, if the topic arises, I am confronting my shame and taking active steps to surpass it and rise above through the help of Christ as well as community.
Now you’re prolly thinking, “I get how the shame and spiritual warfare tie together, but where the heck does a sombrero tie into this?” Well…. Originally the sombrero was meaningless–I had “bought” it from one of my trainers for the camp who was acting as a drunkard in the streets during our international market dinner simulation (which I absolutely loved!) which was the perfect size for my teddy bear that will be coming on the race with me.
Fast forward to the last day–I have been walking around camp for the last 2 days with a teddy bear wearing a sombrero half zipped into my backpack (to the point where I was referred to as “the teddy bear girl”)–and I asked my trainer if I could keep the sombrero for my teddy bear and he said that as long as he’s going with me and takes it we can have it for the trip, and I said yes. Although seemingly insignificant, it was that moment that I decided 100% that this was what I wanted to do. You see–the night I had the realizations about the spiritual warfare, I also heard from God that because I shifted my focus of wanting to go on the race from personal reasons to being I want to follow His call on my life (even if it meant not going on the race), He would bless me whatever my decision regarding staying (for medical reasons) or going on the race and placing my trust in Him that He will guide me and protect me while I am out in the mission field.
Therefore, that seemingly insignificant, yes my teddy bear is coming on the race with me, so I was allowed to keep the sombrero to take with us, held a lot more meaning behind it than I prolly even realized at the time I said it.
Lastly, we got our teams at training camp and I am so happy to announce that I am apart of team Abiding Azar–myself, Brittany, Lynna, Melissa, Savannah, and Marissa!
