I know that ya’ll have been barely hanging on to the edge of your seats waiting on me to tell you about training camp. Well, wait on brothers because this post is all pre-training camp and Beauty for Ashes. Don’t sigh and roll your eyes though because this post is one in a three part series. Pre training camp, training camp, and post training camp. Put on your seat belts, because here is part one…
I don’t know this for sure, but I heard that I became known as sad tent girl during the Beauty for Ashes retreat (3 days prior to training camp). Weird huh? Would you like to know how I earned that name? Poor ignorant Mary had never been camping before this past week, and to say that she wasn’t prepared would be the same as saying that bucket showers from freezing ground water is the most unenjoyable thing I’ve ever done. Which is absolutely true. So basically, sad tent girl didn’t know that a two person tent was basically a necessity, or that a rain fly was almost literally life or death. I didn’t even know what a rain fly was, until it started raining lakes from the sky at two in the morning my first night there. I decided that I would go Saturday morning before actual camp and get a real tent at REI a town over, problem solved; BUT, I still had another horrid night to survive in a tent the size of Harry’s broom closet (Harry Potter reference) without a rain fly. The best thing I could come up with was taking my footprint, hanging it over my tent and keeping it held up by tying it to the vines from the nearby trees. My inner Bear Grylls/World Racer came out and I was incredibly proud. Needless to say the pride was short lived when it began to pour at two in the morning again. Sigh. So I balled that bad boy up Saturday morning and proceeded to throw it in the trashcan when none other than a brown recluse comes hurtling out of the trashcan at an alarming speed. I decide that the safest and smartest thing for me to do is to scream as violently as possible so that I appeared scarier to him, than he did to me, and run away as fast as possible. Clearly that must be why I wasn’t chosen as the head of safety for my squad, because in hindsight that was a terrible idea. I don’t blame them for not choosing me. After this terrifying series of unfortunate events, not to mention the emotional and spiritual exhaustion I had from the Beauty for Ashes retreat, I was ready to GO. LEAVE. RUN AWAY AND NEVER RETURN (Lion King Reference). God broke me down in every way possible, leaving me weary, worn, tired, irritable, vulnerable, and confused, a whole plethora of undesirable emotions all at once, and for the first time since I signed up for this journey I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. You people want me to sleep in the rain with a brown recluse as a teddy bear, you want me to deal with my daddy issues, family issues, you want me to give all of this over to God when clearly I am doing SO well with it on my own, you want me to CRY in front of people, not to mention doing all of this with people that I have never met before right now. You people are dumb and I quit. I mean but really, I was not prepared. The most incredible thing about it though was that He was. God was prepared for what He was going to do in my life. He knew what I needed. He knew I had pain that I didn’t even know I had and when I realized it,He was there as I broke down and sobbed for what felt like hours. He took my broken spirit and He healed it. He freed me from my chains, replaced the pain with joy and the slavery with freedom. In that moment I wasn’t the girl who grew up without a dad because he was in prison, I wasn’t the girl who took care of her mom because she was sick, I wasn’t the girl without any family, I wasn’t the girl who wasn’t loved, I wasn’t the outcast, the unwanted. In that moment I was loved. I was his. The Father took me, the broken, and He bound up my wounds. He extended His love and grace to me and told me that He thought I was worth it. And to be honest, that alone was worth every tear, soggy sleeping bag, brown recluse and bucket shower. I learned just at the Beauty for Ashes retreat who I am in Christ. I am a chosen daughter of the King, and He has given me the keys to the Kingdom. I am loved, cherished, respected and free.
Now I won’t give any spoilers for the next post, but everything I just wrote happened in two days. Try and imagine what happened in an entire week. Whoa. So be looking for #2!!
Unitl next time,
Mary
