“With all of that being said, I’m going to recommend to the training team that you not be in a position of leadership this year. I think you need to take this season and just soak and receive from God.” As I type these words and reread them, I know that they are not harsh words. They are words of grace and love. Yet, as I heard them on the second day of training camp, I felt like a kicked puppy. My stomach leapt to my throat and that trusty old narrative full of lies began to play on repeat in my head: “Who in the world do you think you are? Of course you aren’t good enough! Do you know what you’ve done? The choices that you’ve made? You thought you could just waltz in here and be someone different? You’re exactly the same so you should probably just get out while you can, before everyone realizes that you aren’t good enough.” That tape played on repeat as I walked away from the table, battling internally: should I just call it quits, pack up my tent and be done before it got any harder? Fortunately, the tape in my head had been rerecorded just enough; a small, quiet voice fighting the battle alongside me. “No, Heather. That’s not who you are. You aren’t going to run. Pick up your backpack and join your squad. Lean in.”
I made my way to the Poplar building and joined my squad in a dance-off battle. Though it was not really what I was in the mood for, I deeply needed it: to be silly and present and engaged. After the dance-off, we received a World Race Wisdom Talk (essentially, a “Ted Talk” from a World Race Alumni) entitled “How to Live Intentionally on the Race”. Though much of what she said was good and needed, my main take away was this quote: “Allow the Lord to take things away that are unhealthy because He’s doing it to bring you closer to Him.” Wow! Perfect timing.
Though I don’t believe that a leadership position in and of itself is unhealthy, there’s been evidence to me before that the title of “leader” can occupy an unhealthy level of space in my mind, my heart and my identity. Furthermore, my reaction to the news that leadership would not be recommended for me was extremely unhealthy. It pressed play on an old set of lies and ignited a fire pit of shame in my stomach that centered around the question “How will I tell people at home that I’m not good enough to be a leader?” Both of these responses are incredibly unnerving.
I don’t like that as my reaction. I don’t like feeling not good enough, even if it’s only on occasion. One of our sessions was on dealing with lies and I realized that the lie that most effects me is that my worth and value is directly dependent on how many people love me and would say that I am their favorite or that I am the best. It’s been a long journey of continuously being released from that lie and it has much less power over me than it used to, but a piece of it is still there.
I’m thankful that the small, quiet voice won over the blaring lies. Leaning into the discomfort proved to be so fruitful as training camp progressed. As I ponder over the ways that God used the sessions before and after that conversation, I am just in awe. Our speaker shared this prayer with us on the first day: “Lord do anything you need to do in me so that you might do everything you want to do through me.” That’s a crazy scary prayer but it’s the one I want to own in this season.
I don’t want to miss out on the uprooting, uncomfortable, pruning work that happens in the presence of God. It’s painful and uncomfortable and makes me feel prickly and anxious. Yet, I know that my ability to feel pain at a deep level is directly related to my ability to feel joy at that same level. I know that God is faithful to filling my empty, broken places with His love and His presence. He reworks the narrative of lies to reflect His truth.
“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10
Stay tuned for the next installment of “Healthy FOMO: Movement & Encounter”
