A couple of years ago, I prided myself on the ability to not be able to cry. I remember thinking to myself at times, Ha, look at this girl…she cries at everything. Me, nope. I'm good. Doesn't affect me at all. I don't know what was wrong with me. I guess it was all the heartbreak I experienced from people I let myself get close to, so eventually that wall just came up and it got so high that even I didn't know how to reel it back down.
But God knew.
Suddenly, I would feel God's presence so strongly that it put me to tears. Or I'd see a documentary about the life of African families who sometimes walk for millllles just to get water. And by the time they go there and back, they've spent their whole day with nothing to show for it other than a bucket of water to nourish their families for what….a day or two? Or I would tear up due to pure joy in my heart over something that I would see.
And for the past year or two, I have spent countless hours weeping over things that either
a) just broke my heart so much, or
b) made me so joyous.
And it's so freeing now, because I used to see crying as weakness, but now I see it as strength. I see it as visual compassion. I see it as a move of the Father in peoples' hearts, in my heart. I see it as beauty.
And then at training camp one night, we were making declarations on chairs. This is part of the freedom that I wrote in my previous blog. I remember asking God, What is it that I can declare on that chair, God? People were claiming their worth, their identity, and chains on hearts were literally broken and shattered.
And then I started realizing something that was placed on my heart, so I got on the chair.
And as soon as I got on the chair, I burst out crying. And I confessed to my squad that the Lord had given me this supernatural love for them that I couldn't even describe completely. I told them that I had been given a fierce love for them. And I found myself crying at every moment that there was joy found in a squadmate, freedom was found, love was found.
And I told them this…I said..I don't know, I guess I feel like I should be called the "Crying Mother."
Whoa, that's way different than it was 2 years ago.
And this was my freeing factor.
The fact that I could cry and experience such joy in those moments.
And I straight up LOVE my squad.
I love their hearts, I love their passion. I'm excited to push them and call them into the greatness that I see in them and I'm excited for the same push back. They are joyous, they are adventurous, they are conquerors with Christ and I am overwhelmingly ecstatic to be in their presence this next year and be stretched.
G squad!
