It had been almost a year since I’d stood in this room. My bare feet touched the cold tile floor in the AIM conference center as I sang and danced and jumped and swayed and raised my arms to praise my God. I worshiped Him in a beautiful, unchained freedom that I hadn’t possessed last July. Eleven months ago, a slave to sin and brokenness had walked into my World Race training camp. That girl wore shame like it was an outfit. That girl didn’t believe they she was worthy of answering the Lord’s call. That girl correlated her identity with her many, many transgressions. That girl was in a deep pit of sin that no matter how hard she tried and how much she strived, she just couldn’t dig herself out of. That girl cried in her tent every night because the enemy convinced her that she was the only one fighting battles, that she was the only one with imperfections. That girl doubted her decision to go on this crazy adventure, and allowed worry to gnaw away at her spirit when she thought about the days to come.
And then that girl hopped on a plane to Costa Rica alongside 45 strangers, and Jesus shook her to her very core and flipped her world upside down.
I am that girl, and in the past nine months I have been on the craziest, hardest, wildest, most worthwhile, most beautiful adventure of my life thus far. I traveled to three different continents. I lived in five different countries. I took countless planes, buses, cars, boats, taxis, and bikes to get where I needed to be. I loved the unlovable. I lived out of a backpack. I jumped off cliffs and swam in oceans and ate dinners on rooftops overlooking beautiful skylines. I poured out into broken people and broken communities. I cared for the orphan and the widow in their distress. I saw poverty- real, gut-wrenching poverty- firsthand. I made genuine, lifelong, Christ-loving best friends. I drank way too much instant coffee. I lost battles. I won battles. I saw a miraculous healing. I named three babies. In Africa, I spent hours singing and dancing to the beat of the drum in the name of Christ my king. I walked alongside believers from all different tribes and tongues. I had hard, grueling days. I had days where everything felt as effortless as breathing air. I was renewed and transformed.
And in the midst of it all, Jesus met and spoke to me in ways unlike ever before. He reconciled me to himself. He set me free from the shackles that I had put on myself. He washed away my sin and clothed me in white robes. He told me that shame is no longer my name, and sin is no longer my master. He gave me a new identity- one in which He called me “worthy, chosen, blameless, redeemed, gifted, daughter, jar of clay, a royal priesthood, freed.”
In Rwanda, He wrecked and rebuilt my life through the book of Exodus. I read about the Israelites who begged the Lord to take them out of slavery in Egypt, and then grumbled against Him once He did. They were so quick to forget about His love and His power. They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they kept repeating mistakes and refusing to see what was right in front of them. But despite their distrust and disobedience, God remained steadfastly faithful and eventually brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey.
I had been those Israelites for so long. I had been a chosen daughter who God had taken out of slavery, but begged Him to go back once things got hard. I had been the child of God wandering around aimlessly in the desert, cursing His name and refusing to see the incredible things that He had made possible for me. And despite all my shortcomings, He was still bringing me into the Promised Land.
As I poured over those Scriptures in a little village in Africa, I repented. I declared that I didn’t want to be enslaved to my sin anymore. I didn’t want to look back to my old life of oppression. I begged God to walk me through the wilderness and into Israel. I was changed. I was freed. And I continued to walk into that new freedom for the rest of my race. I made the decision then that I was going to live for Jesus and Jesus alone. I promised myself and God that I was never going to stop being this free, beloved, transformed-by-Jesus girl.
But as I stood there at PSL, worshiping with newfound passion and adoration (having only been home for a few short days), I thought to myself “how in the world am I going to keep this up when I go home shortly? How am I going to be that freed girl from Rwanda? How am I going to continue to live into the identity that God has cultivated in me on the World Race? How am I going to live this boldly for Jesus everywhere I go?” In the middle of my worry and confusion, my squad-mate Shelby approached me, wrapped her arms around my middle, and embraced me in love. Without me saying a word about my anxiousness, she began to speak truth into my life as she told me to “let go.” Her eyes filled with tears as she told me that God feels my sadness, and His heart breaks when I worry about things that are not of Him. Moments later, another squad-mate came up to hug me and whispered in my ear “keep holding onto Jesus like you are now.” Their words resonated in my spirit, I thanked the Lord for using these two girls to give me truth that I needed to hear. But He had more. As we sang our last song, my squad mentor said “I know that some of you here are worried about falling into sin or facing trials when you go home, but you don’t have to hold yourself together. You are not the faithful one. God is the faithful one. He has always been the faithful one. He’s going to enable you through His spirit.”
My friends, He is a good God. He is a loving God who desires to be in relationship with all of His children. He is the God who walked alongside me transformed me and renewed me on the World Race. He is the God who has been with me at PSL, teaching me new lessons and giving me new revelations. He is the God who will go home with me and empower me with His spirit to be the freed girl that Jesus made me into through His death and resurrection. He is the God of healing and miracles and abundant goodness.
I come home tomorrow, and I can’t wait to show people who God is, what His freedom looks like, and the things He can do in a human life over the course of nine crazy months. Praise Him.
For the Kingdom,
Ellen
