All week I prayed that god would break me. When I say prayed I mean earnestly asked that he would break my heart. Sounds crazy, right? Don’t worry I thought so too when I was saying it but I knew in order to be taken to places god wanted me to go he had to break my heart to rebuild it better than before. I had no idea what that would look like but I knew it would be uncomfortable. but you know how the saying goes, beauty is pain. well I asked and boy did I receive one beautiful soul makeover. God didn’t do this in one swoop but rather little by little while at camp.
The biggest “heart breaking” moment for me was on the second to last night of camp. I had had the perfect day. We found out our teams (shout out to team submerge!) and we were allowed to go off campus to “make a memory” which for us consisted of binge eating cupcakes and getting a piercing. We came back to stuffed, refreshed and ready to take on whatever torturous sleeping arrangement they had for us (kidding–kind of 
)
I walked into service and all those good feelings suddenly faded. Out of no where I was filled with fear, insecurities and intense sadness. I decided to move to the front of the worship center in hopes that the music and singing would shake my mood. Unfortunately the feelings kept intensifying. I kept praying for god to rescue me and rid those feelings but I couldn’t feel him.
I looked around the room at these people worshiping their hearts out. Full of passion and genuine love for The Lord and I looked at myself who was in tears over my insecurities an sadness that I couldn’t even offer up a useful prayer to god.
As the pastor was talking he kept making eye contact with me, I figured it was because I looked miserable. My face was swollen from crying sad, lost tears and I honestly felt like I was the most worthless, useless person possible but I wasn’t going to give up on my god. I know he’s stronger than the dark feelings filling my body. All I could do was raise my hands in worship and pray in desperation that god would lift these feelings.
I felt someone come up behind me and lay hands on me to pray. I heard her prayers but I couldn’t recognize her voice. She was praying that god opens my eyes to the beauty and joy that he wants me to embrace. She prayed that the devil would flee from me and that I would realize how I’m a beautiful daughter of god. After she was done I turned around to hug her and I didn’t know who she was. I had seen her in passing but never talked to her. That was an obvious message from god that he was there with me in that moment.
A little bit later my squad leader came up behind me and whispered in my ear that she has been watching and praying for me and that she could tell I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders and it was time to let it go. Tears are instantly streaming down my face because I hadn’t told her anything about me struggling.
She continued to pray for me and speak about things only god and I knew about. She prayed that I would remember that I am strong and beautiful and god has a lot he wants me to embrace. She told me that I need to let these bad thoughts go so I could fully focus on god. At some point she left and I continued to intensely pray Asking god to rid these thoughts and spare my heart.
Now the pastor gets up to talk and people are getting amped up about the message he’s giving. everyone’s clapping and cheering and I’m standing stone face holding on to the hope that I know my god saves and that soon he would save me from my own thoughts.
Yet again the pastor keeps glancing my way. As I’m turning my head to avoid eye contact he steps away from the front of the stage towards me. He looked at me directly and said “you. It’s you I keep looking at. God has some words for you” and immediately my heart sinks. “Do you realize how beautiful you are?” He asks me. At this point I’m crying so hard all I can get out is a nod. He continued to tell me that god is bragging on my beauty because they can see him through me. He told the room that if they wanted to feel beautiful to come stand by me because it was radiating through the room. I honestly couldn’t believe that I was being singled out in such magnificent way. But don’t worry it gets so much more awesome.
As he’s speaking I can no longer hear his words because I’m just praising and thanking god for hearing my pleas and saving me. I suddenly feel everyone around me laying hands on me and declaring things like “you are strong. You are beautiful. You are loved. You are his.” Everything I doubted they rebuked. My squad leader came up behind me and whispered “open your eyes and look at how many people love and support you” and when I opened my eyes I was speechless. As far as I could see people had hands reaching towards me in prayer. ME. They were praying and speaking specifically for me.
Do you realize how incredible that is? For so long I have fought such strong insecurities that more often than not overtook my life. And to have these people I had met only 4 days before set a moment aside to lift me up…I’ve never felt that much earthly love in my life.
After that prayer was over I was instantly filled with joy, I felt 100 times lighter and my heart was soaring. God saw my pain and he knew my genuine prayers and he showed up at just the right time to remind me of his unending love.
I still can’t believe that out of a room of 300+ people god chose me to have those words spoken over but then again i know he’s trying to remind me how special I am to him.
This is just one story of the many ways god broke and rebuilt my heart and training camp. I want to share my story in hopes that it touches someone else who was/in my insecure shoes. Turn to god. Pray out of desperation if you have to but make sure you’re running to him an don’t give up hope. He’s there. He hears you. He’s pursuing you. So stop standing idle and run as fast as you can into his arms. He wants to protect you and take care of you, so will you finally let him?
