Training camp brought out the good, the bad and the ugly in me. It pushed me to one of the hardest breaking points in my life, but it was worth it all.
It’s been three weeks since I left training camp and I’m still processing all of what was poured into me. I can say that it was an intense, fun, humbling and wonderful experience, but it did come with some pain.
Our leaders spoke about vulnerability almost every day of camp and how to apply it to our walk with Jesus and others. If you read my last post, which was right be I left for training camp, you know that this was a total Holy Spirit confirmation. As you will see, God knew I would need to be ready to start being vulnerable. At the beginning of camp, we broke out into groups within our squad and spent time opening up about the masks we had worn in our struggle for identity. Later in the week we shared incidents of pain and how many of us had held the pain in for so long that we never let ourselves sit with Jesus in our pain. The ladies of the squad also had a time to share about any shame we’ve held onto. The Holy Spirit had begun a work in me just in the first few days, but I knew it was far from over, and that the journey had just begun.
If We’re Honest by Francesca Battistelli
Truth is harder than a lie
The dark seems safer than the light
And everyone has a heart that loves to hide
I’m a mess and so are you
We’ve built walls nobody can get through
Yeah, it may be hard, but the best thing we could ever do, ever do
Bring your brokenness, and I’ll bring mine
‘Cause love can heal what hurt divides
And mercy’s waiting on the other side
If we’re honest
Don’t pretend to be something that you’re not
Living life afraid of getting caught
There is freedom found when we lay
our secrets down at the cross, at the cross
Bring your brokenness, and I’ll bring mine
‘Cause love can heal what hurt divides
And mercy’s waiting on the other side
If we’re honest
It would change our lives
It would set us free
It’s what we need to be
Bring your brokenness, and I’ll bring mine
‘Cause love can heal what hurt divides
And mercy’s waiting on the other side
If we’re honest
These lyrics couldn’t be truer of what God was asking me to do when I got back from camp; share my brokenness and my journey toward healing with you all.
It’s hard to be broken, but “I’ll bring mine…”
I have walls, in fact, I have many. I have built them up to keep people out; even people who I know love me for me. Why, you might ask. I don’t know if I even know all the reasons, but much of my hurt and fear goes back to my struggle for identity as a pre-teen. Once I entered middle school, I already knew that I wasn’t going to be like everyone else or at least like the “cool” kids. I was already much bigger and had already started dealing with acne. I was also very quiet and introverted; I didn’t have a life of the party personality. All of these combined made for a hard three years of middle school and so walls started slowly coming up and the lies of the enemy, “If only I could make myself more likeable, prettier, skinner, people would like me and want to me my friend.” While I did have friends, a small group from school and church, in the back of my mind I still struggled with the feeling that I was not enough and a huge wall came up: a wall built of rejection.
Once I entered high school I started to notice other things, for instance, when I’d be speaking, even with my close group of friends, they would start talking over me and ignoring what I was saying. Trying to be sweet and easy going (wearing a mask that everything was okay), I’d let it go, forgive them and move on, but the more this continued over and over again, it started to take a toll on me. I couldn’t tell you how many times I felt invisible. I still to this day remember a dream, (I don’t typically remember very many), I had as a child where I was home and all the people I loved were there but they couldn’t see or hear me no matter how hard I tried to get their attention. It may sound strange, but it was terrifying. When I think back on it now, I can see how the fear of rejection already sneaking in my mind even as a child.
Moving from middle school, into high school and college the question of how to relate to boys came up. I knew I didn’t want to chase after guys like most of the girls my age as I had been praying for my future husband since I was twelve and dreaming of one day meeting my prince charming. In my mind, I figured him by the end of college I would have met my future husband or at the least get to go on some promising dates, but by the time I graduated from college that hadn’t happened. Not a phone call, a chat, or a date (being asked directly by a guy) ever presented itself. While I’d share my hurt about this at times with friends or family, the wall never came down and the pain never ceased completely. This thought continually entered my mind: “I’m not enough. Something must be wrong with me and that’s why no one really cares what I have to say or wants to date me. No guy will even love me for me and think I’m beautiful.” Satan had been pushing these lies through my head for at least fifteen years and I had believed every one of them.
As I mentioned above, from the start of camp, God was already working on some of these walls and pain I pushed aside most of my life. Many of the things I hadn’t ever thought about or dealt with. After the first few days, I really believed my healing had begun and it had, but God was going to take me to a deeper level of brokenness.
Camp begun on the 8th and from the get-go I had gotten to meet the majority of my squad and they were friendly, loving and caring people; they are sincerely amazing people! But these lies that I was finally starting to rebuke in my life still kept rearing their ugly head even by the third and fourth day of camp. Satan started whispering his lies that my squad didn’t really like me due to the fact that almost all my squad mates had seemed to find a few people they really had connected with, but yet I hadn’t connected with one person. I found myself walking alone to events and hurting all the while. It was hard because I knew this was something the Holy Spirit had revealed and it needed to stop, but I couldn’t seem to let it go.
Fast-forward to the 13th where it all came to a breaking point. As a squad we had been gathered up to leave together to go and camp out at a nearby state park. We started setting up, cooking, and once that was finished we had time to hang out. Again, the feeling of loneliness crept in and I found myself on the verge of tears and having a total metal down the entire afternoon and into the evening. I had squad mates who I know were genuinely concerned ask me if I was okay, but I lied and said I was. I hated that I couldn’t be vulnerable with them when we had been working on this since the start of camp. I felt defeated, alone, like a weight was crushing me.
The guys on the squad had set up a tarp overhead and underneath us for the squad to sleep on. It had rained earlier and was very likely to come again so we all squeezed in as best as we could. Of course, being hurt and also pitying myself, I stayed off to the side until there wasn’t hardly any room on the tarp left for me to sleep on without being halfway exposed to the rain. I started to get upset at that and that I was sleeping crooked on top of tree roots. That’s when the real pity party began; I broke down in tears sleeping on the ground surrounded by all my squad mates, but I made sure that no one knew I was crying. I laid there balling my eyes out for a good 10 minutes. Crying over the hurt and rejection I felt and that it seemed I had regressed in all the progress I had made with the Lord the five days before.
As I’m lying on the ground and have calmed down, it then starts to sprinkle and again the pity party begins. “Not only am I hurting and alone God, now I have to get rained on. Really?!” That’s when the Holy Spirit spoke to me, “These rain drops are my tears. I’m crying with you. I’m hurting with you. When you feel these rain drops hit your face, they are my tears for you. I love you and what hurts you, hurts me.” What a revelation…It hit me like a ton of bricks and the tears again started streaming down my face. This time though, they weren’t out of pity, but out of thankfulness. I thanked Abba Father for His love and faithfulness to me. I was truly broken at this point. Seth Barnes speaks about brokenness in his book Kingdom Journeys this way, “Brokenness is what happens when something amiss is exposed and requires change. The change was needed all along; you just didn’t realize it. If we are to be transformed, we need to first be broken. Brokenness clears away the obstacles that get in the way of transformation.”
The Holy Spirit then brought back to remembrance the verse in Hebrews about Jesus being our High Priest and that He understands our weaknesses.
Hebrews 5:15-16 (NLT) says, “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
This verse tells us it’s okay to be vulnerable. Jesus went through the testing we have and will face and we don’t have to be afraid of messing up and failing. We can run to the throne of God and He will be waiting to wrap His arms around us.
The following night the Holy Spirit used a prophetic word to speak a confirmation of what He had spoken to me under the tarp. I was told to not doubt what my role was or that people love me. God was confirming that my identity was in who Christ says I am and that I am not alone. That day I had such a peace in my spirit. I started being able to open up more and began connecting with my squad mates.
Again on brokenness, Seth writes, “We practice brokenness – this discipline of emptying ourselves – so that we can be filled with God’s life. You won’t be broken once. You will be broken again and again and again. You won’t have to surrender once. You’ll have to surrender and surrender and surrender.” I’d love to tell you that I will no longer struggle with the fear of rejection or wanting to keep others away from my mess, but I will tell you that God has begun the process of healing and I believe that day by day in brokenness before the Father, He will continue to bring total healing and restoration in my life.
One last quote from Kingdom Journeys says this, “Brokenness precedes intimacy. People relate to others at their place of greatest brokenness. When we’re broken, we are drawn to God. We need him more. He redeems the pain. Once we’ve come through brokenness, we can listen with greater obedience. We become people of deeper conviction and more profound compassion who are able to pray for others in the midst of trails.”
Only in brokenness before God and others can we truly have healing for ourselves and those around us. Let’s be honest together.
Bring your brokenness, and I’ll bring mine
‘Cause love can heal what hurt divides
And mercy’s waiting on the other side
If we’re honest
If we’re honest
