In my last blog, I talked a lot about the details of last month….my new team, our ministry, the basics of how the month went. I want to share now what God was doing in my heart through all of that, how He grew me and what He taught me during our month in Thailand. It honestly was one of my favorite months on the Race, and one of the moat fruitful, in my opinion. This is probably gonna be a pretty messy blog, more of a story than an easy to read set if bullet points. But I really feel like I need to just walk you all through the month and what I learned and experienced.
The overall theme for the month, I think, was freedom. This was the month where I began to really fight my insecurities, to believe truth rather than lies, and to finally fully invest in my time on the Race.
There was a freshness at the start of the month, with new teams, a new country and a very new culture. The feel of our ministry was very different than any I had really experienced in the previous months. I started the month with an expectancy for God to move in big ways in our ministry, but also in my own life.
I honestly did not do a very good job cultivating my relationship with Him the first part of the month, and came to a point about a week and a half in where I just felt dry. I had a talk with one of my teammates and from then on began to really press into God. One of the ways that the enemy really attacked me was speaking lies to me that I was worthless on my team, that I didn’t have a place and that nobody wanted me there. I began to really fight those by being intentional about spending time with my teammates, having conversations and going deep. I also was intentional about asking for prayer, which really helped a lot.
I discovered when I left for the Race that I am actually quite introverted, and I am an internal processor. I had never realized how important alone time was to me, or how hard it was for me to open up to people. I am much better in one on one situations, and have shied away from opening up to a group for most of the Race. In a community and team based culture like I live in, that can be a real challenge. I decided this month that it was time to start moving past that, so I shared with my team how God was speaking to me and what He was doing in my heart. It was simple really, but it was a big victory for me.
If it was just those areas that God worked in me, that would be plenty. However, I am leaving out the biggest area He challenged me and grew me in: music.
I have always had a huge passion for music, but I have never believed in my own abilities. When I brought a guitar on the Race, it honestly never crossed my mind that it would be used for ministry…I just knew that I didn’t want to go eleven months without playing. It was never a question to me whether I would bring a guitar with me, and I know now that God had a specific reason for that. Starting in month one, I was leading worship, and immediately following that, I was expected to bring my guitar almost everywhere for ministry. I was playing all the time, but I never felt confident in it, I always kept things nice and clean, and I never thought I even sounded good.
I led worship for my squad twice, as well as for teams and smaller groups several times. Every time, I walked away feeling awful about myself as the devil whispered to me that I was talentless and nobody wanted to hear me. I believed every lie he spoke. In Thailand, we had a lot of space and a lot of opportunities for me to play guitar, both by myself and in a public setting. I played at our open mic nights and sort of had fun but really didn’t believe anyone who told me I did a good job.
At the end of the month, my friend Ashley planned a 24 hour worship burn, something God had laid on her heart at the very start of the month. Things worked out amazingly with the new Zion building, and we decided to focus the burn on prayers for that ministry and the plans God had for it. A few hours before the burn started, it was mentioned to me that I might be leading worship at the start of the burn. Because of all the lies that I had been believing, I was terrified, but I also knew deep inside me that it was something I needed to do. So I told Jillian how I felt, and asked her to make sure I did it. I also had her and a couple of others pray for me throughout the day.
The burn started that evening, and I led worship for about an hour. I let lose in a way that I hadn’t really before, and the room was alive with fire and passion for God. He moved in some really amazing ways!
As soon as I was done playing, the devil again began spitting lies at me, and I laid in a corner and just cried. I let myself sit in that for about a half an hour before I realized how ridiculous it was. So I picked myself up and began to speak truth over myself. As I did that, I began to be filled with joy again, and was free to worship God in freedom.
I prayed with one of my squad leaders about some things, and she told me that she felt like God would pour more and more out onto me as I began to give more and more. I realized I had long been operating from a place of insignificance, from believing I didn’t have much to offer. So that changed. I decided to be bold, to pray for people and ask for words for people and encourage people, and the more I did, the more joy I was filled with! I spent four hours at the burn through the middle of the night and it was such a sweet, beautiful time.
The next night, for the closer of the burn, I again led worship for a portion of the evening. This time, I operated from a place of boldness and freedom, and at the end, I shared what God had spoken to me. I believe there is a power and freedom in speaking things out, and I felt a lot of things break off of me when I shared both my insecurities and my victories.
About a week later, I found myself on a rooftop in Malaysia. Our squad was having a short debrief to transition into our new teams, and we had worship for two nights in a row. The second night, we were doing a really unique worship where we were free to do whatever we wanted, whether that meant singing along to your iPod, playing guitar, reading your Bible, whatever. I was on one corner playing guitar and singing out and finally not caring what I sounded like but also finally hearing that I did actually sound good. In the previous two days, a couple of different people had given me words about my giftings as a worship leader. My squad leader Megan approached me with a really incredible word from God as well as to invite me to lead the squad in some corporate worship, and I agreed to do it.
As I stepped up to begin, I felt a new boldness inside of me, as well as a need to give it everything inside of me. I allowed my deep down passion for music and worship to finally explode in me, and I sang and played without a care about what I sounded like. It was a step even further into freedom, and really an incredible beginning to what God is going to work in me in these last two months on the Race. I feel so empowered to walk out the freedom that He has given me, to take risks and live life at 100%. I am so excited to see what He has in store next!
