I say I would be mortified because the amount of clothing, gear, and supplies I am looking at right now is insane. The items seem to swallow up my carpet, disguise my bed, and drape my doorknobs. If I’m being honest, the chaos doesn’t just stop with my room alone. You see, ever since my two older sisters married off and I moved home to the ham for my student teaching, I have used our upstairs as my own personal three-bedroom “suite” (as mi madre likes to call it). I’m a gal who loves a good change of scenery, and I guess who loves to spread out. I try to keep at least one of the three rooms spotless and the other two decently clean, but after just coming home from the training camp of a lifetime all three of them are mighty crazy. After a long day of teaching kiddos at a summer camp I couldn’t help but look at all of the mess around me and feel like it reflected the state of my soul.
Training camp was unbelievable. It was physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually stretching. Looking back though, I remember the unease and fear I felt as I packed and drove myself to Gainesville, GA. I was scared of the unknown and honestly wanted to “get it over with”. The initial fear was almost immediately replaced with joy and excitement. As I got to know my team I began to feel comfortable to be the truest form of myself. It was evident from the beginning that the Lord had handpicked each unique person to be on our squad.
Throughout the ten days of training camp we got to learn from some amazingly wise folks. We also got to experience spirit filled worship like I had never seen. On the second night nonetheless I found myself feeling completely and utterly distracted during worship. Whether it was my back aching, my stomach rumbling, or the sweet gal across the way singing totally off key, I could NOT concentrate on praising my God like I truly desired to. I knew the enemy was succeeding in taking my focus off of Jesus, yet I felt hopeless in my distraction. A song or two later my squad mobilizer came over to me and told me that she saw me in some kind of cage and that God didn’t want me there. It didn’t take me long to realize that the Lord himself was using people in that room to speak life into me.
Flash-forward a couple of songs to when I’m singing Only Jesus by Brian & Jenn Johnson “Let my heart want for nothing but You, just You. The riches of this world could never satisfy, let my heart want for only You.” During this one I felt less distracted but wholly ashamed. I longed to sing the words and mean them with all of my heart, but I knew that it didn’t match up with the way I had been living. I tend to really dog on myself when I end up distant from God and instead of feeling a healthy amount of guilt in the form of a heavenly love pat, I usually experience an unhealthy amount of shame — the belief that I am not good enough or unworthy to be the prodigal son coming home once again. Get this – just as I was close to tears attempting to sing this song, my trainer came over to me. She quietly said that she pictured me as a bride dressed in the purest white and reminded me that the Lord wants to take away all of my shame. Talk about a clear message from my Father. To top it all off, another trainer whom I didn’t even know came over to personally pray for me. She asked God to renew my mind. Before she could finish, the band started playing No Longer Slaves, which was when she said, “I think this song has a lot to do with it”. If you haven’t heard that song I encourage you to give it a listen because it is powerful to say the least. I am so thankful the God of this universe uses bold believers to speak biblical words of hope and peace to his children!! I prayed that God would really become real to me again and boy did He show up.
A lot of the topics we were taught on were tough ones. The special sessions and quiet times of training camp opened up a space for the Holy Spirit to move in and dig up old wounds that I thought I had taken care of. During the entirety of training camp I felt as if God was being very purposeful as of which areas of my heart to unearth or uproot for further inspection. I was reminded of a book I read called The Shack, which illustrates the soul as a garden that the Holy Spirit is maintaining. The garden is both lovely and chaotic, God’s beautiful mess. We aren’t capable of seeing the intentional design and perfect pattern, but I have faith that it’s there. The enemy tries to tell us that letting people see into our mess will be mortifying but in truth it is more freeing than fatal.
So when I find myself back in “normal life” after a week and a half with intense connection with Jesus and his people, I feel pretty jumbled. My heart is as disordered and messy as my three-room suite. The one thing I know to be true is that God’s got me. His plan was for there to be a six-week break in between training camp and launch. As much as I wish that wasn’t the plan, I know this is a time where the Holy Spirit will do some intense cultivating.
Over and out,
Julia
