As I’m sitting here writing this, my team and I are on a Honduran charter bus heading from Peña Blanca to Tegucigalpa to meet up with the rest of our squad before we move on to Guatemala for month 2 of the World Race.
**sigh of relief** One month down.
I’ve always heard that some months of the World Race are tougher than others and everyone’s “tough month” is different, but I never in a million years imagined that I would start out with a tough month right out of the gate. I was the one who was supposed to be strong with tough skin. I was the one who was supposed to have it all together. I was the one who wasn’t leaving behind a typical “stable” home life to miss and long for. I was the one who was fully funded and not burdened with the extra pressures of fundraising while on the field. I was the one whose heart came alive on my mission trip to Haiti this past March. I was the one who should have been alive in Honduras too, right?
False. 100% false. All those expectations were quickly shattered. If you follow any of my social media accounts, spoiler alert… they don’t always paint an accurate picture of what is actually going on in my heart. This blog post might give you a little bit more of a glimpse into my heart this month in Honduras.
This month in Honduras was possibly one of the toughest months I have experienced. It might not have been the toughest, but it absolutely makes my top 5 list. It was characterized by tears (a lot of tears), heartache, longing, spiritual warfare… and then more tears. This month pushed me so far out of my comfort zone in vulnerability that looking back on it now, I don’t recognize the fountain of emotions and feelings that I was this month to my teammates. The people I was sure would be there weren’t necessarily, and the ones I never expected to step in and carry a huge role in my life this month, did. God works in some pretty crazy ways sometimes.
I might have cried a lot, but I have learned a lot more about myself and my Father than I expected to in just one month on the race.
I have learned just how prevalent spiritual warfare is in my life and how important it is to be equipped and ready to fight it, and to fight it fiercely. Truthfully, I was not even remotely prepared for the battlefield of my mind and heart that I was entering this month.It wasn’t long into our time in Honduras that I realized how much the enemy was attacking me. I knew it was happening and I could tell when I was being fed thoughts and lies that were not from the Lord, but I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t get out from under the attack. I prayed, my teammates prayed, I had people at home praying and in those moments, I would feel temporary relief but then like clockwork, the next attack was soon to follow.
I have learned that He equips those that He calls. All throughout the month, I could sense God nudging pieces of my heart and slowly giving me ways to resist the attacks and fight the enemy. But it wasn’t until this past week that I decided to listen… silly me. If you can hear the Lord speaking to you clearly about something, you should probably listen and do what He says. Just saying. I didn’t and it probably could have saved me a lot of tears this month.
I have learned just how vital community is. I am not going to lie, living in community is not always the easiest. There is no such thing as alone time. There is no hiding. Community comes with a lot of feelings. Community entails continuous teamwork. Community means learning more about each other than you ever imagined because there’s no way around it. I mean, you’re living together in a room after all. But for me this month, community meant a constant support system. No matter how many times I cried, repeated the same feelings, fears and doubts over again, I was met with understanding, grace and love from my teammates. They met me in my brokenness this month and sat with me there. They spoke gentle, loving words over my hurting heart time and time again no matter how many times in a day I needed them to. They spoke when words were needed and listened when they were not. They were prayer warriors for me and let the Lord speak clearly through each one of them. Team Rover, you guys are rock stars.
I have learned that vulnerability is a good thing. Read that again… vulnerability is a beautiful thing, y’all. This is coming from the girl who has gotten comfortable at hiding behind a brave face when she’s secretly falling apart on the inside. One of my teammates, Regina, is REALLY good at asking the tough questions. The kind of questions that cannot be answered with “I’m good” or any other façade that we tend to put on to each other to avoid vulnerability. The kind that forced me to explore the depths of my heart to find out what I was truly feeling; they didn’t even allow me to lie to myself anymore. The kind that usually ended with me sharing way more with my teammates than I was comfortable with sharing. The truth is, without sharing and being vulnerable, there is a good chance I might have imploded and self-destructed this month. Trust me, it hurts and it’s hard, but the result of true vulnerability is beautiful and freeing.
I have learned that my healing is a continuous journey with my Father, not a one-off thing. God did not wave a magic wand and free my heart in one quick motion from all the shame, pain and brokenness of my past. Somewhere deep down in my heart, there was a part of me that thought that was what happened in my salvation but I have quickly come to realize that there are still parts of my soul that desperately need healing. There have been things that have surfaced in my heart this month that I could have sworn I had dealt with and were behind me, but healing is continuous. It’s a daily choice for me to wake up and walk in the freedom that Jesus bought for me on the Cross. He could probably take it all away at once, I mean He is God after all. But that would take away the beauty of learning how to wholeheartedly trust the Lord and walk in the word of the truth of God day in and day out.
I have learned that I am still learning. Every single day for the rest of my life, the Lord will continue to teach me, grow me and mold me. There will never be a day where I don’t have something new to learn. As I move through different seasons of life, the Lord might change the way that He is teaching me, but I know that He will never stop teaching me and I can honestly say that I am anxious to learn more, dive deeper with Him and keep walking with Him. I don’t know what the next 10 months are going to look like, but this verse has spoken to me repeatedly this month:
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand” John 13:7
It’s okay that I don’t have all the answers. It’s okay that I have no control over the outcome of the next 10 months. It’s okay that I have no idea who I am going to be 10 months from now or even one month from now, but I am learning every single day whose I am. And that’s more than enough.
I’m thankful for Month 1. I am thankful for Peña Blanca, Honduras. I am thankful for our ministry, Eternal Family Project. I am thankful for the 22 girls who didn’t expect us to be perfect but allowed us to love them right where we were at. I am thankful for the tears and the heartache because they were worth it. God is always worth it.
