There is a time for every season…This season of being on The World Race has been one so very different from any other season of my life. I had my ideas about what things would look like and some things are like what I thought and others are completely different. I knew that I would be stretched and I have. Although this year is very much about ministry and furthering God’s Kingdom, it is also about letting God be the center of my being. About him being number one in my life and doing whatever I have to let him be my everything. So, I am just going to share with you a little of what God has been doing in me so far this year.
Month one I spent in the Dominican Republic. When I arrived, I honestly was more nervous and unsure than excited. I was thinking my about home, my family, my life that I was leaving, and the new life I was stepping into. It was a very scary time. There were a lot of unknowns. The only thing I was sure of was that God had called me to this. Even that I sometimes struggled with. At Launch, God began to break away things. I was not at all willing at first, but it came to a point of me feeling sick to my stomach before I finally began to take the steps I needed to start abandoning things of the life I was leaving. Those first steps were so painful and I felt very alone at first. As we arrived at the place we would be living and started ministry It was very much in a battle of the life I was leaving and who I once was, versus the new life I was walking into and who God created me to be and what he was calling me to. My turning point that month or breakthrough moment finally happened towards the end of January. We were living in a house with 28 of us racers and we were having worship all together.
Robby one of our squad leaders asked us to just speak out who God is to us. At first I didn’t say anything. The whole month I had kind of been that way. As I began to pray though and I began to think of all the things he is to me (my father, my provider, my redeemer, my savior, my physician, my friend, my protector….) I felt my heart begin to soften. I felt my heart begin to open. For the first time since I began this season of The World Race I was truly open to God and what he wanted from me. He wanted my heart. He wanted every part of me. In Order for that to happen, though, I had to abandon who I used to be and that was and has been very hard. The first thing God really put on my heart for the rest of the time we were in the Dominican Republic was Forgiveness. That I needed to forgive those who had heart me in the past that I needed to give those things to him and be done with them. The Second thing was to recognize that each day way a gift from God and so no matter what happens in a given day, good or bad things, that I need to be joyful in the fact that God blessed me with the day. The Third thing he spoke to me about was vulnerability. That I needed to be open with my team and those around me. That I needed to put aside my fears and open up to them.
