Renewal:
the replacing or repair of something that is worn out, run-down, or broken.
The last few days I have been in Gainesville, Georgia. This is where my WorldRace journey started and this is where it will all come to an end. For right now, in this season, that is.
After you finish your WR you come home for about a month and then head back to Gainesville for what we call Project Searchlight. Basically it is a chance to get back together with all the amazing people you traveled with and did crazy ministry with for the past year. That’s what I thought it was all about until I got here.
Project Searchlight is actually a time for you to come back to your safe place within yourself and evaluate what you have done or become since being home.
During my own person reevaluation with Jesus I realized that I wasn’t too happy with what I had become or accomplished since being home.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking “Emily, you are being way too hard on yourself.” I like to think of it as just being honest with myself. I really found myself on the WorldRace. Who I am and who I want to become. And I don’t want to loose that.
Being back in America has been amazing but it has also been hard. HARD HARD. Way harder than I expected. I thought that coming home would be the easy part. But coming home put me back in my surroundings of who I was before I left the race. A person that I had forgotten that had real struggles and deep hurts.
Honestly, I fell short. I did things that I thought I had overcome and been set free from and I started to loose myself in the culture of America.
I don’t want you to think that I became some crazy person in the short time I have been home. The things I did would not seem like I big deal at all but they were to me and the true self I had become while on the Race.
I had compromised myself to feel more comfortable coming home.
NEWS FLASH!!! LIFE ISN’T ABOUT BEING COMFORTABLE!!!!
I did things to feel included. I said things to hide. I hid things to seem perfect. That is not who Emily Madden is. Emily Madden is wild, free, bold, and RENEWED everyday.
So heading into PSL I was feeling pretty run-down. I needed clarity. I thought that the clarity I needed was clarity for what to do with my life and my future but really it was spiritual and mental clarity. I needed to have my eyes lifted back up to the Lord and stop gazing down at my toes.
I was awoken to the here and now. “Today is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice in IT and be glad in IT” (Psalm 118:24).
So the entire week I have been so hungry for the word. I was hungry for everything and every opportunity to hear from the Lord. I listened to speaker after speaker and organization and opportunity all day everyday. By the last day I was finally feeling better. My mind wasn’t as foggy and my focus had been re-centered.
Yesterday me and 36 of the other WRers at PSL went out and did evangelism. We went to an apartment complex that was full of people in our country in a very normal city that were struggling with anything from poverty to addiction, sickness, and depression. It was refreshing to know that I CAN do the same things that I did on the Race here in America. Later that night we got up in front of everyone at service and shared a few stories about what the Lord had done.
As we were all standing there sharing I could feel the Lord just repeatedly saying to me in my mind “Renew, new, renewal” and all those words made me think of Baptism.
I thought, “sure God, it would be so cool if I could get baptized right now to place a seal on what you did in my life in 2017 and to start new for 2018 but they don’t have a tub inside here and it’s freezing outside so there is no way I’m doing that.”
After we were released back to our seats our announcer got on the mic and said that they were going to offer prayer, anointing, and baptisms for anyone who was interested. (SNEAKY JESUS) My heart began to pound. All the thoughts started to race through my head. I had already been baptized when I was like 10, was that even ok to do it again? My dad wasn’t there and that is who I really wanted to baptize me. I didn’t want to go up in front of anyone because I was scared of what people were going to think of me. Quickly I let all those thoughts fall to the floor. This was between me and God.
So I walked up to my Mentor and asked her to pray for me. I confessed to her and to God that I had been hiding behind my fear of needing to accomplish and be accomplished. I laid that title and goal down at the feet of Jesus. She prayed for me and with out knowing that I was about to go get baptized she looked at me in the eyes and said “I had a vision that God is just baptizing you right now. He wants you to know that you have been spiritually baptized and that you are NEW!”
I laughed- choked back tears- and walked my butt over to the baptism station where I was baptized while standing over a pile of towels with a water bottle.
That was my new moment. It was simple but it was a big step of obedience. I know that now all things are new because I am new. I have a new outlook on this season that I am going into. I will choose to rejoice in TODAY and let tomorrow worry for its self.
I have tasted and seen that HE is GOOD. I will no longer be ashamed to share it with the people around me here in America.
Cheers to a WILD new year full of new chances and a new refreshed me.
EMILY
I want everyone too know that you are never too far gone, too old, too embarrassed, or too far from God. He is closer to your than the very skin on your bones and he loves you the way you are. You don’t have to do anything to make him proud. He already is proud of you. He just wants a relationship with you. Start over now. Start new.
