Hello Friends! Thank you all so much for your continued prayers, encouragement, and support. I am so blessed by each one of you! I just wanted to touch base with y’all and fill you in on some of the incredibly awesome and challenging things that God has been teaching me here in Gainesville!
My first week at CGA was spent on an intense backpacking trip through the woods of South Carolina. My team and I hiked over 13 miles up mountains, like legit mountains, with our packs fully loaded. We set out into the wilderness with nothing to eat for the 5 days other than: granola, trail mix, and quinoa (feel free to Google quinoa if you don’t know what that is…I didn’t either). Physically, the hike was exhausting. Not being able to take a hot shower for a week took a bit of a toll on me emotionally. And spiritually, God provided me with some pretty tough and convicting revelations.
During our hike, the Lord continuously made the uneven tree roots in the ground stand out to me (especially since I kept tripping over them). So I spent some time…probably about two miles…just praying about what it was that He wanted me to learn from these extremely inconvenient roots. So He went ahead and informed me. The tree roots were a tangible illustration of my spiritual roots in Christ. The past year that I spent on the World Race, my roots had started to implant themselves deeply in Jesus. However, ever so graciously, the Lord showed me that some of my roots (where I find my worth/identity) are still too shallow. He revealed that where I am not rooted deeply in Him, I cause myself to stumble. And even worse that I may cause those around me, those people that I care about the most, to stumble also due to my misplaced identity. Boom. Heavy. So I had to do some repenting and pray for God to give me the faith to look solely to Him for my worth and for my identity. And He is so good! The Spirit led me to read Isaiah 62:3-5. The entire passage is awesome, but the promise “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” really stuck out to me. I felt like God was speaking directly to me through those words, that He was affirming me and telling me that I am more than enough, that I am loved, that I am worth pursuing, that I am rejoiced over! So I cried a little (in typical Cassie fashion), but my spirit has felt so renewed since receiving and really starting to believe those words from Jesus!
The Father also showed me that fear is also something that He wanted to work out in my heart. On the trailhead at the start of our hike, there was this beautiful and extremely large husky. Apparently He was just wandering around in Sumter National Park. He made himself very comfortable and sprawled out right in the middle of the circle we had formed to pray before starting our hike. During the prayer, I could tell the dog was looking at me. So I opened my eyes briefly and stared straight back into his eyes. Awkward. So I closed mine immediately. This happened 3 times, and slowly others around me started to notice and began to chuckle at how intensely this dog was staring at me and at how obviously uncomfortable it was making me. After the third time of me closing my eyes, the dog started barking until I opened my eyes and looked at him. At that point I was a little bit frightened. Then suddenly, the dog jumped up and came towards me. I literally squealed and hopped to the left. But the dog just stood at my side and leaned against me until I pet him. And then after about 30 seconds of me petting him, he just sauntered away into the forest. It was so weird!
So much like the roots in the ground scenario, I prayed for God to reveal to me why He felt it necessary to scare me so badly and to distract others during our group prayer time. So again, the Lord was faithful and He answered me. He let me know that I needed to understand that I have a tendency to shut down when I am afraid or anxious. He showed me that I close my eyes and just hope that whatever the scary thing is…will just go away. God let me know that He was “barking “ at me. Telling me that I must look my fears in the face. That I must face my daunting student loan payments and stop ignoring the phone calls from Sallie Mae. That I must make a decision for my future based on the desires and dreams that He has uniquely given to me and to not be fearful of other people’s opinions of my decision. That I need to stop being afraid to fail at learning and playing to guitar or to sing in front of people. That I need to invite people in to deeper relationship with myself and stop being so afraid that the people I care about will leave. That I need to stop worrying about provision for the next season of life, because God has proven Himself faithful countless times! So just like the dog, the object of my fear in the woods, only wanted to be pet and loved on by me (not eat me), The Lord assured me that in facing my fears I would find that the “scary thing” is nowhere near as scary as I have given it the power to be in my mind. God showed me that He is always right there by my side, and that He has already overcome. So there is nothing that I should be afraid of; He has the victory.
When I got home from the woods, I immediately called Sallie Mae… and praise the Lord…my loans were approved for forbearance! So I no longer am stressed about those payments. I am also gaining much more clarity and direction and peace regarding the next season that the Lord is calling me into after my time here in Georgia is complete. That includes a peace that I know is only able to come from Him regarding His provision in the present, as well as into the future. I have decided to fully invest in the relationships that the Lord has entrusted to me, and to not put up any walls. I have laid down my fear and my pride and played my guitar and have sung multiple times now in front of my housemates. And the Lord has really blessed me through them, and they have been so willing to teach me so many new things and have been such an awesome source of encouragement! God is so good! All the time!
I am so thankful that the Lord loves me enough to call me out, to gently rebuke me, when I am settling for a life less extraordinary than the one that He purchased for me on the cross. When I walk in the light of His truth, I am abundantly blessed with joy, and peace, and perseverance!
I pray that if right now you are hearing the Father calling you into greatness, that you would answer that call! He has the very best for you, because He loves you!
Thank you for taking the time to read this and follow along with me on this crazy journey! I can’t wait to continually share with you what I am learning every week (which is only partially because I am required to do so every week for school). But really I love you guys! You ‘da best! 🙂
<3 Cassie
