Yes, I am being as serious as I possibly can be.
For so long I have associated vulnerability and emotion with weakness. Can you blame me? Culture, people, and everything around me tells me that there’s no room for that. It’s even a joke.
I can’t pin this to just one specific moment, but in the past I have been hurt emotionally in some specific places in my life that completely changed how I wanted to feel in future situations. Some were in relationships, friendships, and just in life but they left me vulnerable and emotional and according to the world weak. From that I decided I didn’t want to feel like that ever again. It was messy, people could see my weakness, I couldn’t defend myself, I was heartbroken, and with each situation there was this horrible feeling of being alone. In my mind I decided I would NEVER let my heart hurt like that again. But, we are created with emotions and feelings for a reason so it wasn’t easy. Over time I have trained my heart and emotions. I know when to hold back tears, I can change my tone of voice to hide fear or hurt, and with some situations I have trained them just not to work. It’s like the theory of natural selection. When I face an emotional situation if I can just swallow my emotions enough to get through next time it will be easier. It’s gotten to the point where little to nothing can make me emotional.
So when we began this journey of the World Race our very wise coaches warned us that whatever we have built up that is apart from Christ and scripture would be torn down, and it would probably start with the toughest things first. The notorious quote of training camp “He is going to kick the bricks of your foundation.” By this they didn’t mean the foundation of my beliefs because that involves Jesus and the bible, but all the things that I made my foundation that weren’t of Him. My first thought was ‘Yes, let’s get rid of all of that, but that doesn’t mean who I am as a person.” I had accepted emotionless, and hard as who I was. Looking back I can remember all the things I have spoken over myself like heartless, and black soul, as jokes but then I took that as who I was, and that is not of God.
All throughout training camp ‘that word’ was just thrown around like it’s nothing. For anyone who knows me personally, you know that I can’t hide my facial expressions, and if you don’t know me I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Every thought that runs through my head comes across my face too. So they are just throwing around ‘that word’ and I know my face looked just like the emoji.
The idea of opening up to anyone scares me so let’s add to the fact that there were almost 30 people at training camp and I had only known them a few days. SCARY!! In some of the first sessions I felt the Lord beginning to dig up my roots and kick my bricks. But, He was not calling me to share or be open yet and I was perfectly ok with that. It was not until the Lord dug up some of the deepest roots of who I am and brought to the surface things that seemed so little, but ultimately were not of God and they were in my foundation that He…. **swallow** wanted me to share. We had a time of reflection on our own and I fell apart. I knew that this step meant that I was taking step toward freedom. And as freeing as the tears felt the thoughts going through my head were “I don’t cry, I don’t have emotions, weakness, when is the last time you even cried?,’ It’s true I have only cried a couple times in the past few years, but it’s not because I didn’t have emotions. It’s because of what being emotional got me in the past.
At that moment, laying in my eno, in the middle of NO WHERE Thailand, crying, I committed to the Lord the I would be vulnerable *ehh!!** if that’s what it took to become who he wanted me to be and feel that freedom I was tasting. Me, stilling hating emotions, wiped my tears and walked back for our group reflection time. This moment was literally boiling up inside of me. I can’t remember if I was the first one to share or not, and I apologize to whoever might have went before because I don’t remember, but the moment I shared my heart I felt so much relief, freedom. I felt safe having my heart out on the table for everyone to look at.
FREEDOM.
Unfortunately this was not something that just went away after I shared that. Multiple times since that day at training camp God has impressed on my heart to share things and be open, and my first thought is still ‘they don’t need to know that.’ WRONG ANSWER! And I begin to hear ‘the word’… Vulnerability. And being as honest as I can be with you, it makes me sick! This is a constant battle and will continue to be a constant battle because of how deeply rooted it was in my life. But! It’s a battle I’m willing to push through because of the freedom I receive on the other side.
I have already heard testimony of how what I shared has made an impact, and I don’t say this because I need that confirmation to continue to share. I committed to be *yuck* vulnerable without anything in return except more of Him. So I will be vulnerable and share in obedience!
**Side note- I thought I would get away without ever having to blog this. Silly me, today we had a session on blogging and the leader speaking said ‘be vulnerable in your blogs.’ Of course my facial expressions spoke exactly what I thought of that and a dear friend came up to me after about how I have a real issue with vulnerability. I knew that I needed to blog this then, but the leader also said sometimes you’ll write stuff then after reading it and prayer you won’t actually post it. Haha got ya God! I immediately started this with those intentions. Now, I’m sitting on the roof finishing and one of my new friends from YWAM walks up (doesn’t know anything about this) and says “How’s blogging going?” I say “It’s going good, trying to finish.” He says “Do you normally blog?” Me, “no, but I’m trying.” He says “being vulnerable?” WHAT!! Conversation went on to ultimately make up my decision to post this.
So there it is.
In order to receive more of God and become who he wants me to be,
I am going to be VULNERABLE.
