Hey Everyone! First of all, I am so sorry that it has been an eternity since I wrote my last blog. I have been wanting to write a blog about some really awesome things that have been happening, but I have been having a hard time trying to figure out how to put in all into words. I am not sure I will do the story justice, but I am going to go for it anyway.
Way back on September 3rd, I was talking to one of my squad leaders about obstacles I was experiencing as a team leader. I admitted that I had been leading out of fear. I knew that I have always struggled with caring too much about what other people think of me, and I could see how it was affecting my leadership. I would make decisions based on how my team would react, instead of what I believed was the right thing to do. Feedback was not happening on my team because I was too afraid to initiate it.
As I talked about it more, I shared my past struggles with people pleasing. I have always struggled with the need to be well-liked: the need to look perfect to as many people as possible. I have struggled with this for as long as I can remember. God has been consistently working on my heart in this area since I was fourteen.
My squad leader listened, and told me that I should spend some time with God about it. He told me to ask if there was any event in my past that I needed to work through, or anyone that I needed to forgive. He also told me to ask God to reveal to me what I actually think about him. Was I holding any ideas of God in my heart that weren’t true? Those were two really good questions, and I knew that I needed to spend some time processing them.
So, the next day, I went up to the patio to ask God those two questions. His answers surprised me. As it turned out, the person I needed to forgive most was myself. I have a great memory, and I can remember every single bad or embarrassing thing I have ever done. I look back over my past, and I have so many regrets. God showed me that I needed to let go and forgive myself.
There was one time in first grade when I sharpened a crayon in the pencil sharpener. I ended up breaking the pencil sharpener, and felt so stupid about it. I still look back on that moment with regret and embarrassment, even though it happened when I was six or seven. God told me that I shouldn’t look back on first grade Mallory and have regrets, because first grade Mallory brought so much joy to the Lord’s heart. If she brought joy to his heart, she should bring joy to mine as well.
I used to cinge whenever I would watch old home videos of myself. Ten year old me was spastic and awkward, but I need to love ten year old Mallory. Ten year old Mallory was loved by the creator of the universe, and so I need to love her too. When I was fourteen I was painfully shy and thought I could pull off sidebangs. I was an insecure mess, but, even in that mess, God delighted in me.
Every year of my life, I have brought joy to God’s heart. He has never looked at me with anything but love. If the Lord of the entire universe found joy in who I was in the past, then I should too. In that moment, God convicted me. I knew that I needed to start loving who I was in the past, and not be ashamed. No mistake, no slip-up, no one moment could ever change the way that He sees me. No moment in my past, present, or future defines me. What defines me is His love for me. God knows the name of every star in the sky, and yet he has known me and loved me every year of my life.
After God showed me all of that, I asked him the second question. How do I really see you? He told me that I see him as a judge. I lived in fear of disappointing him. I was not fully walking my my gifts because I was afraid of failing him. I stayed inside my comfortable christian-life bubble, where I knew I wouldn’t fail. I was too afraid to do more. I was too afraid to dive into all that God wanted for me.
I was so convicted. I started crying on the patio where I was sitting. It was probably quite a sight for the poor DTS student who was trying to do his laundry out there, but I didn’t care. I knew that chains had just been broken in my life.
Later, I texted my squad leader to update him on all God had shown me. He said that, since I took away the title of “judge” for God, I should pray about what to replace it with. I prayed over the next two days, and God gave me the word WARRIOR. A warrior is very different from a judge, A judge impartially holds you against a standard, but a warrior fights for you. A warrior is willing to die for you. God is my warrior, not my judge. I had such a peace after processing through all of this. God is so good! However, that’s not the end of the story.
Two weeks later, on the morning of September 15th, my team was having intercession with the YWAM staff and students. Intercession at YWAM is the same as listening prayer. It is a time where we ask the Lord to speak to us about a certain area. This particular morning, we asked God how each of us could give of ourselves to bless another person. As I was praying, Alex, one of the DTS students, came up to me with a translator. He told me that God wanted me to step out in courage, despite my past. He said that maybe people in my past had made me feel insignificant, but that I should not let those things have power over me anymore.
After Alex told me all of this, he handed me a napkin with Joshua 1:9 written on it. When I saw that verse, my heart started beating. That verse has followed me my whole life in some way. When I had arthritis as a child, Joshua 1:9 was my go to verse. When I was ten, and I had surgery on my hand, I had to leave my parents in the waiting room and walk away with the doctors to have the surgery. I was absolutely terrified. I felt like crying my eyes out, but I kept repeating Joshua 1:9 to myself over and over again. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Receiving that verse from Alex meant so much to me, and his words were confirmation of what God has been speaking to me over the last two weeks. I went upstairs to pray and think on the verses some more, when Cindy came up to me. She handed me a note, and said that God gave her some words to give me. She rushed off too DTS class, and I went into my team’s room.
I read the note. It said that God wanted me to stop living in fear. It said all the things that God had said to me while I cried on the patio two weeks previously. In the middle of the note, Cindy wrote that God had given her a word for me. That word was WARRIOR. The exact same word he gave me before. I freaked out. I called my squad leader right away because I could not beleive what was happening. After I talked to him, I realized that I hadn’t even finished the note. I started to read it again, and, when I got to the end, there was a verse at the bottom. You can probably guess what that verse was. That’s right, Joshua 1:9.
God is so good. He is undeniably, magnificently, and completely good. I called on him, and he answered me. He wants to break all the chains in my life. He is my strength and he is my freedom. I am so overwhelmed by his love for me. He has brought me into a place of so much more joy through all of this, and yet I long for more. That’s the great thing about him. He is infinite, and so there is always more of him to discover.
Doing ministry in Zone 3, Guatemala City’s dump zone.
