I hated men. Well it is true. I didn’t know it before the race. But what I did know is that I distrusted and disliked men in general. The realisation of hate came to me around month 6 on the race. Don’t get me wrong I love my dad and my brothers. I have never been abused, or had my heart broken, so in that sense I have lived a different life than most other women. I have a wonderful protective father and great relationships with my brother and brother in law. I could like men individually but disliked them as a whole.
I have a Master’s in Criminology and before the race I worked as an advocate for domestic violence victims. I rarely worked with men and of course the majority of my clients were women. I worked in this field for over 5 years. I’ve seen the worst.
I knew when I signed up for the race that I did not want to be on a team with guys and knowing that not too many guys signed up for the race, I thought I would be okay. I thought, “I love women it will be easy to open up and share my heart with them”. At training camp, when the talk of teams came up I would pray against being on a team with guys, but when the leaders asked my preferences I did not mention it. I wanted God’s will to be done. I was going on the race for God to stretch me and to grow closer to Him and I was willing to do whatever.
It is the end of the race now and I am one of three girls on my squad who has been on a co-ed team the entire race (excluding manistry month). God has a sense of humour.
Before the race, I would see the problems and injustices in the world and would automatically attribute them all to men, thinking that if women ruled the world and men were in caves we would not have these problems. My close teammates would gently point out my unfairness to men and I would deny it or say they deserve it. I would give women far more grace then men.
It was a slow process of God gently prodding me to realize this about myself. In every country, especially the first 5 countries, God let me work closely with great men of God. He also showed me this through my male teammates, whom I had to learn to get along with and eventually learned to trust and share my heart with. It was a long process but God has healed my heart towards men.
I just wanted to say thank you to all of the men I worked with on the race. Thank you for showing me men all over the world can be good. Jesus has softened my heart and it gives me such a freedom and a hope for the future. I hopefully will get to see two of my contacts on the race that helped start this process within months of being home. God is good!
I did not think I would post this but this is a major thing I have learned this year. God cares so much about us that he wants us to get healing and freedom in every area of our lives. Even when you don’t know you need it.
