Training camp was a profound experience. It was a beautiful, joy-filled, exhausting week. I slept in tents, busses, and dorm rooms. I met amazing men and women that I will be going out into this world with defending the Gospel and sharing His love.
I danced…
I danced…
I danced…
I almost reached my breaking point. Here’s where I’m about to get vulnerable.
Something happened in me at training camp. I came to realize this: that sometimes I’m holding myself together because I want everyone to see how strong I am. But sometimes I feel like I am literally grasping for pieces of myself so that I don’t break apart in front of everyone. What happens when I look strong on the outside, but on the inside, I’m falling to pieces? I’m breaking. I may look strong, but I’m so so weak.
Before training camp, I became aware of my deep desire to be affirmed. This affirmation I would seek and receive from anyone. The worst kind though were the empty affirmations. I knew those words were empty. I knew they did not bring life.
Words are heavy though. And words, well, they don’t cause the physical breaks that are visible to the human eye. But words can break us in a different way. They break us in such a profound way that we feel we must keep the pain inside because ‘we need to be strong’ or we simply have no words of our own to convey to others this pain that words have caused. This pain, the inner breaking of my heart, is twenty two years of clinging to empty affirmations. It was at training camp that I realized I wanted, needed this to end.
So it became my prayer. Lord, please be enough for me. Please be enough. Please pursue me. I don’t feel you, and I need to. Only YOU can fix what is broken inside. I want YOUR affirmations to be the only ones I need. Heal these twenty two years of seeking empty words, empty love.
Then one night, our speaker shared a message about grieving. How it’s a spiritual discipline. How we need to grieve so that we are not weighted down by constant sorrow. How grieving is healthy. And how this grief, it is not just for the loss of people. It is grieving disappointments, grieving dreams unmet, grieving rejection. Rejection. I can grieve that? I don’t just have to move on immediately and be okay because the Lord has a plan? He can have a plan and I can still grieve? Woah.
Then, my teammate shared with me this verse, this cry of my very own heart:
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties [rejection, fear, sorrow]. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)
At training camp, I learned how to delight in my weaknesses. The freedom in that is simply overwhelming.
Specific prayer request-That I have the continued strength to delight in my weaknesses.
(Here are a few random pictures of my week at training camp.)
(A few of our 'homes')
(A few of the sweet girls on my team)
(A small taste of the 'Market')
(My incredible friend and one of our trainers, Priscilla)
(My TEAM. I love these girls with all my heart)
