Sleeping pads. Sleeping bags. Free standing fans. One small bedroom. One bathroom. Seven hiking bags. Seven backpacks. Seven females.
Month 7– Philippines
I have slept a total of four hours in the past three nights. It is night four and I am dreadfully tired. Our one bedroom apartment is a tight lodging place for the month. It is insanely hot and humid. Also to make matters worse, I am sleeping on the hard floor due to my sleeping pad getting a hole that was not fixable during month four.
Bed, sweet bed. This is where two of us sleep. At my feet is the bathroom. (Photo creds: Lindsay Anderson)
One of my teammates had given me Melatonin on night two; however, I only received two hours of sleep. Night three I took Benadryl, praying that I would be able to get more sleep before the next ministry day. I woke up again in the middle of night with only two hours of sleep.
“I’m so tired.” I thought to myself. “Am I going to be able to sleep tonight?”
Midday on day four of no sleep breakthrough happen. (WAHOOOO!!)
My team of seven came together to have worship time. Shrena, who leads worship for our team had us chant, “God is enough,” while listening to a powerful song that AK had on her laptop. We did this for five minutes. Shrena encouraged us to put away all distractions. After the song finished she asked us if it was hard to focus and what distractions popped up. To my surprise, it was one of the lyrics in the song.
Take what’s broken
Heal the pain
Take my heart
Have your way
I had a revelation. I’m not in another waiting season, I’m in a healing season.
“Wait…what does that even mean?” I thought to myself.
My heart had been through some pain about a year before I came on the Race. Before God was going to reveal to me the next step in my journey, He would have to heal my wound and take care of my pain. My heart needed time to heal and that was going to take place in God’s beautiful timing.
At this point, I just wanted to cry. But here’s the point, on the Race you never have alone time– you are in constant community. Instead of me jumping in my car for a drive full of loud music, crying out to God, and ugly tears I found myself in this tiny bedroom surrounded by a few of teammates. As AK played the SAME song I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears rushed out like a dam that had finally broken after too much pressure. Shrena took my hand and at this point I became vulnerable. Yep. That “v” word that no one likes. It happen and I had zero control, but to let these two beautiful sisters into my journey as I shared about my heartbreak, revelation, and healing. In return, they offered words of wisdom, encouragement, and prayed over me.
“This is community. This is what it was like in Acts.” I thought to myself.
I’m stubborn. I don’t like talking about my feelings. God knew this. He knew I needed to talk these things out with these two teammates. He knew I needed to hear His words come alive through them. Lack of sleep was rough; however, me being incredibly tired made me super vulnerable. He knew this is what it would take for me to listen. Let me tell you, it was worth the sleepless nights.
Living in community = hard.
Being vulnerable = not fun.
Lack of sleep = rough.
Hearing from Him = priceless.
“Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”–Psalm 30:5
