Charity Elaine
The first day of training camp. I was nervous but very excited to meet the rest of my squad. After registration, we were given a sandwich and bag of chips to eat for dinner at our squad’s campsite. I set my tent up pretty quickly and joined a circle of people awkwardly eating sandwiches and chips together. I noticed two of my squadmates setting up their tents beside us, they were both wearing skirts and head coverings. I felt in my gut that I should help them with their tents but I convinced myself to stay in the sandwich circle. That was one of my biggest regrets during training camp.
That is something the enemy does, he tries to keep us from rich, heavenly friendships. However, he certainly did not win this battle because one of those women has been on my team for the last four months.
Her name is Charity.
Charity has taught me so much about Jesus since starting the race together. She has displayed incredible spiritual leadership by making sure we pray every morning and night as a team. She strives for making wise, prayer-filled decisions and fights for honesty. Charity has also taught me that baked oatmeal is the best breakfast in the history of forever. She teases me relentlessly but also is willing to throw punches if someone eats a banana around me (I think this story forever changed her view of bananas lol).
My favorite part of our friendship is that we can simply be. We don’t have to use words to solidify our friendship, we can just be ourselves and its as simple as that. We spend rich quality time together and only exchange a few words and I love that! My favorite times together look like reading on the couch (she reads books on her phone) and trying to turn the page when she isn’t finished yet. Or even watching movies and telling her when all of the good parts are about to happen.
I’ve never really told Charity how much she means to me but if I did, it would go something like this:
You are bold and eager to hear from the Lord. You inspire me to seek out His will above all else. You are our little African and I love hearing your accent come out when you speak to the locals here in Botswana. You have been made beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of Christ and nothing can take that away from you. Thank you for changing my life in one of the most interesting ways.
What I’ve been reading lately :
The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson
