Since this is my first blog post, I just wanted to let you know that I am going to be completely honest in these. I hope I never start to paint this journey like its all rainbows and butterflies. I want to be completely transparent in these, I hope that’s aloud.
What better way to start this off then with Training Camp. The first couple days, all I could think about is how much I wanted to go home. Normal Chloe, would have loved being stranded in the middle of nowhere with 50 strangers! Really… I’m not being sarcastic. But for some reason, the second I arrived, I was so overwhelmed & immediately shut down. I started telling myself, “you wont like any of these people, you are nothing like them”. It was just the most annoying thing!!!
I started getting frustrated with God and myself, because I was confused as to why I couldn’t be myself. But, things started to change for me right when we started worshiping. Close your eyes and Imagine 300 young people in one small room dancing and praising to how great our God is. The best part was, we are all crazy enough to put our lives on hold for a year to say yes to this Journey God has for us. Thats when I realized, if that is all I have in common with these people then, that’s enough.
Everyday, our meals represented a different country or continent. My favorite was Latin America… it was basically just really good Qdoba. We also had to follow the cultural rules in each area. For example, in India, for some odd reason they deem the left hand unclean and they do not use any utensils. So, the whole day we had to eat food with our right hand (honestly, I kinda liked it in a weird way). We also had “sleeping scenarios” almost every night. These were my favorite!! One night we got stuck in an airport in Asia.. so 100 of us piled into a noisy room and sleep with the lights on. Or one night half of our team lost all their luggage, including their tent, so we had to ration our supplies lol.
Throughout the week.. God was revealing so much to me.
1. When I was very intimidated and just feeling less than because I was the youngest in the group and I had only been on my walk with jesus for less than 2 years… He showed me He could care less how old you are physically or spiritually. It doesn’t matter how many bible versus you can recite (none) or what your past looks like. He is after our hearts and thats why I fell in love with Him.
2. One night, I was just feeling blocked and unable to feel His presence when everyone around me seemed to be on a high!! I was getting frustrated with God… then He reminded me that He is so much more than some feeling, that He is with me and will never leave me whether I get some cozy little feeling or not. He asked me, “Do you love me more than that feeling”? I had to make a decision to keep going and lean into His promises whether I was in the mood to or not.
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There is many many more.. some maybe not appropriate for my blog right now haha but Training Camp Wrecked me in the best way. I’ve been asking God to break my heart for what breaks His.. and Allow me to see people as He does. And man let me tell ya.. if we just ask, He WILL show us!
That somewhat cliche saying about our comfort zones and getting out of them, I learned this week that its very true. These 10 days were the most uncomfortable for me, but I was forced to put all my trust in my Father in Heaven. When I did this, I made some beautiful relationships with the people on my team and huge steps in my walk with Christ.
I can’t freaking wait to abandon all my comforts and spend 9 moths with my team and of course, Jesus.
