So I have decided that honesty and vulnerability are the best ways to approach the Race. I am one who normally is honest with people but I often don’t want the messy parts of me shared with the world. I will share what I am going through with only a very small group of people, but as I step out on this journey I know that I have to vulnerable with my team so they can pray for me and know my heart through this process. With that said, here is my moment of honesty and vulnerability.
I have a really hard time making friends. It probably doesn’t seem that way to people who have become my friend, but I struggle a lot with feeling like people are actually my friend. To me the people I consider friends know the depths of my heart, and I don’t share my heart easily. I have been hurt a lot in the past when it comes to friendships and people just suddenly (or what seems suddenly to me) deciding that I am not their friend any more. Combine that with my super introverted, deep thinking personality and it becomes hard to just let my guard down and let people in. Now combine all of that baggage with the fact that I am about to step out on an 11 month mission trip with people I have never met before. Needless to say, my anxiety is already in full effect.
I know that God is in charge of all of this and I truly don’t have anything to worry about, but I also live in the age of Facebook. Facebook, which provides you with just enough information to make a snap judgment about someone without actually knowing anything about them. I honestly was excited about setting out into the world with a group of strangers until I looked at Facebook. I was able to have just enough information about the people on my squad to start worrying that I won’t be friends with anyone. And now is my second chance to be super vulnerable. I wasn’t worried that people weren’t going to like me, I was worried that I wasn’t going to like anyone on my squad.
Now that you have had a moment to judge me, I will tell you that I have had to judge myself for this thought as well. I have realized that my pride is something that God is looking to root out before I even step foot on the field. I in no way think that I am better than anyone on my squad, I just struggle because I don’t always have the best tolerance for people. I long to be the person who is instantly friends with everyone they meet; the person who everyone wants to know and spend time with. But, I’m not that person, and I have to accept that in my mind it’s easier to tell myself that I won’t like anyone than to accept that I don’t want to go through what is a long and arduous process for me to build friendships.
If anyone on my squad is reading this, I truly cannot wait to meet you. So when you see the tall girl standing in the corner who looks intimidating and uninterested, know that in the back of my mind I am freaking out and meeting you is the hardest and scariest part of this journey for me. Having to meet you has brought up a lifetime of memories and fears.
If you are on my team at home and are reading this I need something from you. I need prayer. Lots of prayer. I have to go in October for 10 days to training camp and nothing scares me more than going to a place where I know no one for 10 days with the assumption that I am supposed to feel like these people are not only friends but family after that time. There is a small group of people in my life who get the title of family, in fact there are only 11 people ( all a part of one amazing family here in Texas) in the world that get that title outside of my immediate family. I don’t let people become friends, so imagine how crazy it is to me to think of people as family. Please pray that I would find peace in this, and that God would root out any pride that I have before I meet these people in October.
Honesty and vulnerability. They are hard and honestly I am hoping not a lot of people will read this. Because once you share your struggles you give people a reason to look at you differently. You allow people to see your heart and that is always scary. But I am going to trust you with my heart and believe that God always uses our struggles to draw us and others closer to him.
