I knew the World Race would do many things for me. I knew it would draw me closer to God. I knew it would allow me to learn more about people and myself. I knew it would allow me to travel, to see the world, and I knew traveling alone would be an eye-opening experiencing. I knew that I would meet people that taught me so much about life. I knew that I would learn a whole crap ton of stuff from all the different experiences, but I underestimated the amount I would learn about loving myself.
I have always felt pretty confident. I have always been a person that made friends easily and was well liked. I had my insecurities that I struggled with. I had felt unloved or uncomfortable in my own skin plenty of times. But I honestly thought I had a good idea of who I was and thought I loved myself well. This journey has made me realize that I didn’t really love who God created me as. I thought things like. “You are too much, you are rude, you are too assertive.” But last month God really broke me to help me see that those things are not true and that He has created me with strengths and that those are something to be proud of. A little side note: I am not saying loving myself in a way that is prideful. But I am saying truly loving the person God created you to be. You have to love that person or it’s very hard for you to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. We are all sinners in need of grace, but Christ died for that and he wants you to walk in that redemption. He wants you to speak life over yourself. He doesn’t want you to live in shame. I feel for me to really understand the grace I have been given I have to see myself the way the Lord sees me & I think that’s what I am finally starting to see. I owe this all to community. Something happens when community surrounds you every hour of the day. It happens when you start to look into your actions or the reactions you have to situations and dig deeper to see where it comes from. It starts when you start to see that everyone has his or her struggles and no one is better than the other. You realize how much you are ALL in need of grace and start to take the pressure off yourself of not being good enough. I’ve learned so much about who I am by being around people who are looking to help change me while they change themselves.
The World Race has this thing called feedback that we participate in every night. Feedback is a time that you can say what is on your heart (out of love) in order to encourage or help grow someone in who God wants them to be. The cool thing about feedback is you can say what’s on your mind and then that person has to sit with it and reflect on it before reacting. Now you might think this sounds crazy, right? Well let me reassure you there is real value in allowing people to help change you into a better person. When someone points out something to you that you may or may have not noticed it really pushes you to press into that. This very thought of feedback has allowed me to search things out of my heart and actually ask my team to point these things out to me or to help me in something I want to grow in.
Something huge for me last month was the idea of my strengths and just seeing them as valued rather than the things that make me undesirable. I truly have been able to see myself in a whole new light. A light that I know the Lord wants me to walk in, yet I have let darkness take away from it. I have admitted things that I never thought I would say out loud. I have shared things that I never knew I struggled with before the race. But I can honestly say it has been freeing and really pushes me to share more with anyone reading this. I am learning a lot. I am learning a lot about who I am and how I can love myself and take care of myself better. I am learning what it truly means to live a healthy emotional lifestyle and I want to share that with you.
One way I feel I can do that is through my writing. At home I write a lot. I love writing. I still write here, but it’s been more of a personal thing, not something I have really felt that I had the chance to share or wanted to share with people. This last month one of my teammates started a personal blog on the race. Not only does he have his world race blog but he also has a blog where he can write about more personal stuff he is going through. Because even though we are on the race, we are still walking though this thing called life. Life isn’t always fun, adventurous, enjoyable or exciting. Even though I am on this journey, I still have days that I feel down. I still have days that I wonder why I am here. I have found that I don’t want to share just the happy, amazing things about the people I am meeting or the people I am traveling with, but also share what I am learning about life. Because in all actuality when the race is over, life is not.
All this to say that I am going to be bringing my previous blog before the Race back into operation while I am still on the Race. I will not neglect this blog and I will continue to share what each month teaches me, but I also will be sharing the other things I am learning in my own being, not just about the Race. I believe that we never stop learning and I never want to stop teaching myself new things. I want to learn and grow from every situation. I want to always be teachable and I want the Lord to be able to use me the way He wants to.
I wanted to give you all the opportunity to follow that blog too. You can sign up just like this one with your email for updates. I will leave the link at the bottom of this page or you can just catch it when I post it on Facebook. I hope that this will bless people and allow others to join in on what I am learning. I thank you all for reading this and following my journey throughout this season of my life. I am truly thankful to God for each person who reads a post, donates money, shares my story or says a pray for me. You all make this possible for me to learn, thrive and share. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
This will be my other blog: courtennn.wordpress.com
P.S. I love Peru. It’s amazing. I will have another blog coming soon about the amazing people we have met and the relationships we are forming. The Peruvian people love well.
*P.S.S. It’s 11/11… a.k.a. World Race day. (& Veterans day… love my veteran family) I am still in need of funds to stay on the Race for the whole 11 months so I am bringing back the $11 donation. All I am asking is for $11 from each of you! Help me stay on this journey. It will be today only. Feel free to share with your friends. Thanks for supporting me. This journey has already taught me so much and I am looking forward to continuing it. Follow this link to donate $11! Or You can follow the support me tab. 🙂 *
