Community shows every side of a person. When the truth of who you really are comes out there is no hiding it from them. I tried. As my true self was spilling out all around me I tried to hold it together and I just got tired. My lies and half-truths spilled out on the floor in front of me and my team witnessed it. The lies and half-truths like “your stupid” or “your team hates you and doesn’t want to help you” or my favourite “you don’t need their help”
None of it was true. I needed my team. I needed help to clear away the lies. I found myself in a place where the lies were more fitting than the truths were. I believed them.
I have spent the last ten months trying to “get healed” so that I could go home all shiny and new ready for “my ministry” and the hard hurting parts would be over. This eleven month journey is not about getting healed to come home whole. Its about spending time with Jesus and finding out who he really is, which in turn shows you who you really are, then you relize that the you that you are is nowhere close to who Jesus is, and then you make some changes and receive some healing and look a little more like he does. This past month I spent most of my emotional moments on the floor in total isolation. God showed me who I really was and I fell apart. I wouldn’t let my team near me. I was ashamed. If I was being honest, I am still a little ashamed.
I am prideful. I like things to be done my way, I don’t like to accept help from anyone, and I keep most people at an arms length. It makes me feel important in a world that makes me feel so unimportant. Pride was the root. The symptoms would show up in my body language when my teammate tried to serve me dinner or when I would receive feedback and look down at the ground instead of at my team. When someone tries to love me with words or actions I feel ashamed at my self for not doing better or not working hard enough. I didn’t know how to communicate to them that I was feeling hurt and singled out. So I did nothing and allowed these feelings to take me over and dictate how I spoke, felt, and acted around my team.
In the midst of all of this I was on the third month of team leading. A prideful and broken team leader with nothing left to give. I could sense that the end was near and I knew that leading was not right for me, but the thought of giving up responsibility and control was too much for me to think about. After all, what would I do if I was not a team leader? My identity was totally wrapped up in leading this team. My pride was at an all time high.
So God knocked me off my high horse and took me out of leadership. I have three weeks to go on the World Race and I was asked to step down from leadership. My pride was shattered. No one else on my squad was asked to step down…why me? What is wrong with me that I can’t just fix all of this brokenness?? Why does it keep coming back??
I love to talk about seasons in the Christian life. I am finally starting to see more patterns as I walk with the Lord more and more and I love looking bak to see all that he has done in my life.
This is not the first time that I have dealt with pride and I highly doubt that it will be the last time. God takes us through healing only to enlarge our territory and give us more to work with and more to work on. If the healing was over and I was perfect after the race then what would be the point in having and Almighty God who is above all things? If we were all cleaned up and perfect then we wouldn’t need him. I am not perfect and I will never attain perfection. I will constantly need to walk through healing and brokenness. I will always strive to look more like Jesus and less like myself, and it will probably always hurt. This season I am broken and messy. I am now and will always be in constant repair.
