Only 9 days of training camp and it feels like it was a month! I didn't have a lot of expectations going into camp. Oh, I expected to be uncomfortable. To be sweaty and
dirty. To have to carry my heavy pack and to have to eat weird things, but I hadn't spent time combing through past racers blogs for specifics like some people had. And honestly, when I first got there I wish I had! But at the conclusion of the week, I am now so thankful that I was kept in the dark. I am an Assistant Director people!! My LIFE is schedules. So believe you me, not knowing what was coming was one of the most difficult experiences I have had in a long time. But it was also one of the most freeing. All I had to do was show up and try. There were several times throughout the week when a challenge or opportunity was presented that I started getting nervous or anxious, but it was followed almost immediately with a sense of peace and I kept hearing "try, just try." I truly believe it was God, opening me up to new experiences, freeing me from the limitations I had put on myself.
Isn't it amazing when we look back and see all the crazy things we did as children. We jumped off roofs, and rode on the handle bars of bikes. We skinny dipped in neighbors pools, and ran through traffic to reach the ice cream truck. We had no limitations, no inhibitions. We were free. We laughed longer, sang louder, and didn't care who heard or what they thought. As we grow, we claim we don't care what people think of us, but whether consciously or not, we become hyper sensitive about things that could, possibly, maybe rock the boat.
That was what training camp was about. It was about freeing you from your constraints. About tearing down the walls we've built around ourselves…. either to separate us from our sins, or to separate us from the world. I have been so numb for so very long. I've been so afraid that if I let anyone in they'd leave me. I've rationalized so many times that I have no right to feel hurt, lonely, or abandoned. That I am so blessed in my life. And I am. But I also have a right to those feelings. And realizing I have a right to them, I choose to throw them away. I choose not to be constrained by them anymore. I have asked God to free me from my pain so many times, but I have never truly given it over to him. I have not believed that He could really forgive me. I didn't know how to forgive myself, so how could He possibly know how? But the question really comes down to this: Do I believe God is who He says He is? It's as simple as that.
These 9 days may have felt like a month, but I wish they had been a year. Well… they soon will be. This experience allowed me the privilege of seeing a glimpse into who I can become. A powerful, strong woman of God, who is not defined by her mistakes. A woman who knows what an amazing blessing it is to live in true community with others. And who is never afraid to cry out to God in any situation.
