At the very beginning of the Race,before we had even left America, we had to ask God for one word that He was speaking to us about the Race. Something that would capture our time here, or something that He wanted us to learn. When I sat down to pray and ask Him what He wanted to show me I kept seeing one specific picture, a bird escaping it’s cage. From that I figured the word God wanted me to take away from that was freedom. I was curious what that would look like, I didn’t feel like I had any cage I needed to break free from, so I thought maybe I would see people freed through ministry. I kind of put this thought on the back burner and didn’t really think about it again… until today.
During my quiet time this morning I was journalling and thanking God for the growth that I’ve had. One of the major areas that I think I’ve grown in is my relations with people. I’m an extravert to the max, I really love being around people. Sometimes a little too much. I love being around people to the point that when I’m not, it makes me depressed. At home, I always needed to be with friends, I hated it if I knew people were out doing something and I was sitting at home. I had a serious case of “FOMO” ( fear of missing out).
I think living life in community makes extraverts more introverted and introverts more extraverted. Since there were always people around, I didn’t feel the need to always be with someone. I began to become comfortable with, and even desire, alone time. My love language is quality time, so I feel love the best when someone is pursuing me and wanting to spend time with me. But I started to learn to be ok when someone isn’t spending time with me, and learn how to be comfortable just spending time with myself.
To me, becoming less extraverted sounded like a sad thing. I consider it a super power that I enjoy spending time with people and get energy from it! People will always be around in life, so it’s good that I like them. But what I didn’t realize, was that it was kind of a prison for me. Needing to always be around people isn’t healthy. But the Lord has given me freedom from that. And that’s when I realized that that’s something He told me at the very start. He told me I’d have freedom, I just couldn’t see that there was something holding me back.
