I do realize I’ve been in India for over a week and haven’t bothered to update anyone. I want to be honest about why, I’m just afraid of the ugliness it’s going to take to give you, the beautiful person reading this, that honesty…but here it is: team changes wrecked me.
Team WALDO blew my mind by holding up a mirror in front of my face that projected an image back that didn’t even resemble me, to me. They told me every single day who I am in their eyes: wise, pure, beautiful, bold, funny, loving, good at being a sister, a worshiper, a disciple, anointed, chosen, valuable, desired. Every night I heard those things, and I started to believe them, and it started to change the way I saw myself, and I started to walk as a different person.
I said in one of my blogs from Nepal that I had noticed that my team was anticipating me better than I was anticipating me. What I meant was that in situations where I would expect myself to lose it, they expected me to handle it with grace and wisdom. In situations where I would expect my own impatience to cloud my judgment, they expected that I’d be aware enough of those around me to anticipate what I could do to help them.
Team WALDO called me a woman of patience until I became one. Team WALDO called me a woman of awareness until I became one. The men of Team WALDO called me worthy and beloved in the way that they loved me through every one of our interactions until I began to believe to my core that I can never again in my life give any part of my heart to a man who isn’t loving me that way, because Christian Roderick and Wes Webb are men who KNOW how to love women.
It is hard to live with 5 people you’ve never met before, but the six of us managed to do it and do it well. We found depth in each other and in the Lord that I couldn’t have even dreamed of hoping for, because I didn’t know community like that could exist. From team WALDO, I have three sisters and two brothers who I would fight through anything with for the sake of those relationships, and I didn’t know a single one of them until last July. I honestly believed I could’ve spent another 8 months with team WALDO, and still have been learning and growing.
And then I learned that our days living together as Team WALDO were numbered, and that number was not 11 months, but was 3 months. At the end of our third month, A-squad went through team changes and I found myself on a team with 5 women who I barely knew.
I was convinced that I was saying “goodbye” to being loved, seen, heard, and anticipated; and that I couldn’t possibly have those things again with a new group of people, especially not a group of all women with strong personalities.
It has legitimately taken me over a week to realize that Team WALDO didn’t know me until we lived together, and the only way they could’ve loved me so well without faltering for three months straight is because Jesus loves me so much. Jesus hasn’t stopped loving me.
A squadmate pointed out that the same God who put me on Team WALDO has put me on my new team, because God doesn’t change. He doesn’t ever trade in good gifts for bad ones, He only gives good gifts. As Stephanie has been telling me for months, God doesn’t give toasters for Christmas. God gives all-expenses paid cruise vacations to tropical destinations. As Christian has pointed out to me, God has promised that He is always transforming me from glory to glory.
Just now, I’ve come out from under the cloud that I ran to hide under as soon as team changes became a reality. The cloud of pessimism, bitterness, sadness, selfishness…out from under that cloud, Papa’s telling me that my beautiful new team of strong women is good, and is glory, and is going to be used to continue to transform me from glory to glory.
So there’s the honesty about where I’ve been for over a week: fighting for joy and scraping to remember that God is always good, which means He always only has good things for us. Keep an eye out for the insane things He's giving Team Azar Ignited for Christmas here in Ongole, India – and how you can help!!
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**Awkward family photos of Team WALDO taken by one Miss Brianna Danese and Miss Christy Zbylut.
