So Training camp happened. I cannot express the excitement I had going into it, and how I was literally counting down the days and then hours until we would be heading out. The early morning came and off we went. The whole time I was traveling to Atlanta and heading towards Gainesville I had to keep telling myself that this is REAL! I had to keep telling myself that this is one giant step closer to the actual trip that will change life! The trip that will not only change my life but God will use me to change others lives as well and to hopefully restore people and this world that we live in.
So there I am landing in Atlanta and I just cannot contain my excitement. We start seeing other world racers and grow even more antsy. It is very easy to spot a world racer bc they have a day pack and a huge back pack. We all start walking towards the meeting point and we know we are there before we even realize where we are bc there is a sea of backpacks and day packs covering half of the meeting point atrium. The excitement then escalates because all of the people you have grown to know through Facebook, Zoom chats, Snapchats, and the World Race squad page are actually there in front of you! Hugs and excitement are shared we all go to eat together and then start decking ourselves out in blue! N squad was blue and we had shirts made, blue hair, blue tutu’s, leggings, anything and everything we could do plus face paint!
Then the people that work with Adventures and Missions show up and we all get loud! I see Andrew, and it all just gets real. Andrew was the one who made phone calls and pre interview convos were had about where we were and things we wanted to get out of the race. I won’t lie, I emailed him a heck of a lot and the poor guy probably got so tired of me, but he was such a blessing. God knew that I had/have a problem with me seeing myself as important, or good enough. I have never looked at myself and thought that I was beautiful or pretty, but I know that is how God sees me. I have struggled my whole life with feeling like I am good enough, smart enough, skinny enough, christian enough, and on and on and in talking with Andrew this came out. He asked me what I wanted to get most out of the race, and without knowing it was even going to come out I said ” to feel like I am enough”. I wasn’t expecting that to come out of my mouth and when it did I was hit pretty hard by emotions and a realization that I had a lot of feelings and issues that I never fully got past but have let mold and structure the way I see myself. He told me to listen to the song “All He Says I AM” by Cody Carnes. I knew the song immediately and told him I knew it,and he replied with something similar to “and you still don’t think your enough?” He then gave me homework to listen to this song and let it sink in and to believe it and to look in the mirror and tell myself the song as it plays. I did what he asks. Over the next week I listened to only christian music and read though my bible trying to write down and log everything that I am called and I am to God. I told Andrew when we talked again a week later and realized that the more I sunk myself into the word and the more I reminded myself of how God sees me the easier it was to believe. I decided to get a tattoo. (A good bit of my family has no idea about this tattoo but oh well here we go!) I needed a constant reminder of the fact that I am enough, and God loves me the way I am, no matter how my family or my friends may see me or what they may have said to me that I have never been able to forget. Here is the tattoo. 
I needed a reminder because I was about to go out into the broken and lost world to tell others how much God loved them and they were enough. I was about to go and tell others they needed to not care what others have said or how they have hurt you because Gods opinion is the only one that matters. I was about to tell others that their self worth wasn’t in others but in a God who loves forever and created you in his image and likeness and that they are fearfully and wonderfully made! I needed to tell myself this and start believing this. I needed to do this and start fast because 28 years of seeing yourself one way doesn’t change overnight and I had a lot of healing that had to be done inside of my head and my heart.
Fast forward to being in the airport in Atlanta and realizing as soon as I saw Andrew that shortly after I got my tattoo I stopped fighting the battle in my mind and heart and got sucked into the fundraising and preparation for the world race and forgot to spend time on my self image and self worth issues. As the week goes and we are faced with many trials and huge opportunities to grow, I am abundantly surrounded by the negative thoughts of myself and how I never stuck to trying to fix them like I had set out to in the beginning. During this week I experienced enough hurt, feeling broken and shattered emotions to span my entire 29 years. I felt not good enough, not physically fit enough for the race, not positive enough, not open enough, and just plain damaged.
During the week we had a point where we met with a squad leader/mentor/trainer and kind of had a debrief. I of course, had Andrew lol. The thing about having him was I couldn’t lie or sugar coat what I was feeling, he already knew. There was no point in not being real because I knew he already knew what I was going through and he would ask straight out about issues that I have had and past hurts and if I had delt with them yet. I cried, and cried, and cried, but I do believe that there was growth in that meeting as well. I had to come down to accepting that I had to confront issues from my past that have made a huge negative impact on the way I see myself today. I know that I have to do this no matter how hard because I can’t fully love God until I love myself. I can’t fully give my whole self to him if I can’t get past this hurt and rise above the feelings I have towards myself. I have to remind myself that the devil will also be trying harder to bring me down the harder I fight.
I know that Andrew himself didn’t make me come to these realizations, but God used him to open a door of hurt. God placed him in my life to help me to get to a point in which I would have to get real about overcoming this and not just pushing it all back inside to do further damage for an even longer time than it already has. God broke me at camp. God opened up my heart and made me vulnerable about the most insecure things I feel. God made me feel and deal with theses issues that I always push to the side and made me realize that I HAVE to deal with them if I want to give myself fully to him.
So I started to constantly remind myself of his love towards me and how he sees me when I would think negatively. I would start in the morning and it was a constant battle until I fell asleep at night. Emotionally, Physically and Spiritually I was exhausted from just this. I found strength in Him though. I found that my squad had a huge part to do with that also. I have a lot of hurt from family in the past and knowing how they see me verses how these people I just met see me. How were my hurts from family, people I had known my whole life so different from the positive words people I just recently met and see to be genuine? How can these people see me as beautiful, precious, and enough when I have been nothing but broken around them? God showed me his love through my squad and my new team. God showed me his love by giving me Andrew and him being real and not letting me run or just get stuck. Even though it was uncomfortable he pushed me to move past the junk and the lies. God showed me his love by changing my heart and being able to see that what I once saw as impossible is now possible. God also loved me so much that even though I haven’t always loved myself he never stopped and never gave up on me. He is here every step of the way and I know that though I may fail and have hard days his love is never failing. His love is strong enough to put the broken pieces back together and to help me become whole again.
Training Camp Part ll coming soon 🙂
