OPEN.
I’ve been stuck on this word for months. No, really. When we were in Ukraine at the kid’s camp, we would have “workshops” in the afternoon to attend with the kids. Ping pong, soccer, dance, origami, drawing, ect. I chose drawing one day and I felt like drawing a sunflower. After I finished I felt like the picture needed a word, and I asked God for a word for it but the only thing I got was “open.”
Nah, Lord that doesn’t make sense. How would those two go together? So I ask my good friend Caroline, without even telling her what word I was getting and she replies, “I don’t know why, but I’m getting the word ‘open.'”
…what? I’m slightly more than shocked. It makes sense to God, now I just have to figure out what it means. So I spent a few days in Ukraine trying to think about how it relates to my life. I tucked it in my backpack and took it to Romania with me, in which I still couldn’t figure out how it was applicable. What does “open” mean? I forgot about it in Bulgaria, I guess I just thought it was cool how we could both get the same word, and maybe it wasn’t meant for either of us. It just happened.
One day I was alone in my room here in Vietnam, reflecting on a question and feedback I was given. (Now just to catch you up, I’m a quiet person. Always have been, it’s just who I am. I’ve always been compliant, I do my best to put others before myself, and I HATE confrontation. I also know that I’m a people pleaser, and I just established in my mind, “If everyone else agrees on something, your opinion won’t matter. It’s better that everyone else is happy.” So that’s why sometimes I don’t say anything, or if I do, it just doesn’t get heard. And I also hate being the odd one out, the one who is “disrupting the plan” if I don’t like it or agree. This is the 3rd time I was given feedback by a leader about not sharing my ideas or talking, he asked me if I feel safe with my group and feel like I can share with my team. It’s not like I don’t feel comfortable, this is my team I’ve lived with for 4 months, we’ve shared everything. I told him I was just usually quiet and if I didn’t have an opinion on something I usually don’t say anything.
But it got me thinking, so after team time it was just me and my roomies and I asked them, “honest feedback for me, am I too quiet?” And the response I got after sharing more with Caroline, “Do you think you value your own words?”
WOW. OKAY. I just told her, “I don’t know.” I really didn’t. So I sat and prayed and was super frustrated because I didn’t understand, I didn’t understand myself. I was talking to God about it and I go, “but I love talking, I love learning new things, I’m comfortable with my team, I like making new friends, I’m always open, I know I’m open.” And then I got the picture of the drawing. The puzzle pieces started coming together. OPEN. Do I value my own words? Am I really open? So I got out my journal and started writing what came to mind,
“A flower just grows where the seed is planted. It doesn’t look to anyone for validation, it doesn’t wait for all the other flowers to be done growing before it does. It grows, pointing toward the sun, opening it’s petals. It shows it’s colors and beauty, and even when it rains it continues to grow. And it doesn’t know it, but it’s admired by the passerby.”
Now the sunflower makes sense with the word. Who knew that I needed to draw it 3 months ago for a lesson God would reveal to me now? And I’m at the very bottom of this lesson and growth pathway in my life, this new chapter of my life is learning what it means to be open and how to believe that my own ideas and opinions are valid and wanted. I do have a say in things and I do have a voice, my words have power. BUT IT GETS BETTER.
The night before we left Da Nang I had a dream that I was wearing my key necklace, the necklace that has the word FREE written on it. Which I got to describe my spiritual journey. So in my dream I was taking it off and about to give it to my friends that I met there. As I go to give it to them, I pull it back. I think, “God this is my necklace. I don’t want to give it away.” And He sweetly replies to me, “you don’t need it anymore.”
I don’t need that necklace to remind me that freedom is part of my spiritual journey. That’s just how my relationship with God is now. That’s the ground we’re living on now.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
– 2 Corinthians 3:17
