I have seen good feedback on the race, I’ve seen really bad feedback on the race, and I’ve seen what happens when a team of women doesn’t feedback at all on the race. Both the first and the second are significantly more productive than the third.
When there is no feedback, every offense – big or small – sets root in the hearts of every woman involved. Those roots of offense grow quickly, and if left unaddressed, become so thick that it’s difficult to see what was there before they started growing.
photo by Bri Danese
Roots of offense sprout into bitterness, bitterness isolates, and there I was left – sitting in my self-created prison of bitterness.
When a woman (me) allows that to happen to her (my) heart, she quickly loses perspective of her own self, her own identity.
That’s where I was walking into Thailand…and the hardest part is that I have to take credit for it, because no one forced me to hold onto offense but me.
photo by Bri Danese
Picture a solid structure, tall and magnificent, crafted out of gold and jewels. The structure is so perfectly polished that every surface of it perfectly reflects that which it stands before.
That metaphorical structure is me.
it’s you…
at least, it’s what God wants us to look like, and what He created us to act like –
so perfectly polished and crafted that, no matter what angle someone looks at us from, we perfectly reflect Him.
Now picture that same structure with cavities in it – lots of them – craters on the surface that interrupt the perfect reflection of God with deep caverns of darkness.
photo by Bri Danese
Those cavities are the result of sin – wounds created by lies we have believed, traumas we have encountered and not processed well, traps of insecurity and anger and pride that we have fallen into.
If that’s what I looked like at the beginning of my race, then I am certain that many of those cavities have been explored, cleaned, filled out, and polished –
but what I just recently discovered is that some of those cavities may have been cleaned out just below the surface, maybe halfway in, and then were patched over with solid glass –
like Jesus knew it would be too painful for me to allow Him to excavate them entirely at once, so He went in far enough for me to begin to allow Him to heal me, to take those parts and start to craft them into the perfection He desires for me to reflect Him with.
photo by Stephanie May
During the beginning months of my race, I experienced a lot of healing and rapid growth. I walked out of a lot of insecurity about myself that had been spilling out into my interactions with almost everyone in my life.
Insecurities that I had carried had left me easily-offended, seeking applause and approval, and honestly just mean sometimes…and I didn’t even know it.
this is from A-squad's first travel day. I was definitely mean.
Can you imagine realizing that there are people in your life that you are just plain mean to more often than not, and they just tolerate it? I hate to break it to you, but that’s probably a fact of your life, too.
When we don’t have a solid grasp on who we are, we rarely treat the people around us the way that they deserve to be treated based on the truth of who they are.
Over the past four months, I felt I had let go of who God says I am so fully that I’m pretty sure I have been treating people around me worse than the way I treated people around me before I left America.
I’ve been confused and angry about it, too, because isn’t this supposed to be a growing experience?
Aren’t I supposed to come off the race looking more like Jesus than I did when I launched?
How is God letting me back-slide like this?
And how do I stop it?
Because I feel powerless to it.
