Blogging though…amirite??
I adore the idea of it, but my application has been lacking. But that’s all changing folks!!
I just got home 2 nights ago from training camp and a few days of gallivanting around the US to spend some last minute time with friends before launch for the race. WHICH BY THE WAY IS IN 10 WEEKS AND FOUR DAYS. O.O
I have truthfully been trying to process through what happened at training camp and what has occurred since then. I feel the need to say a little disclaimer though: If you are a future racer looking for a dish on what happens at training camp, I am going to do my best to squelch your hopes of finding it here. Trust me, there is so much purpose in why Adventures keeps things wrapped up. It is so good to “go with the process” and experience in the perfect timing and the perfect way the Lord has ordained. It. Is. So. Good.
If you are not a future racer and are simply one of my friends, family members, or supporters, I will do my VERY BEST to not be too vague. But let’s be honest, how much could I really tell you through a blog post. Call me or email me and I would love to have coffee and dish more on details. 🙂
To be honest, I didn’t realize how intense training camp was designed to be. I wasn’t really one of those racers who scoured blogs to figure out what would happen, so I was going into it with low expectations and a lack of hope that any significant change would occur in my life. After all, that’s always the story for other people, right? (It wasn’t until the day I flew out that heard my first horror story rumor of what was waiting for me at training camp, which turned out to be completely false anyways)
Here’s a few nonessentials I learned at camp:
~Get a better sleeping bag.
~You are going to smell and so is all of your gear. Especially after rainstorms.
~You are now on a team with 6 other girls, whittled down from your squad of 55 people. Embrace the girls only team!
~Portion sizes are going to be radically different for the rest of your life.
~You didn’t bring enough baby wipes, Rachel.
~Your headlamp is suddenly more important than toilet paper. Kind of. If you have baby wipes, you’re home free.
~You didn’t bring enough Cliff bars, Rachel.
~Dance parties are a way of life. A way of life that is now becoming your way of life.
~Get excited for embarrassing stories. You’re going to write a book with them one day.
~According to at least 10 different AIM staff members, the probability of me pooping my pants on the race is greater than the probability of me eating my next meal. High. The probability is apparently high, folks. I cried a little when I was told that for the tenth time.
Now that some of those are out, the Lord definitely used training camp as my own personal open heart surgery. And that’s how it goes.
Through training camp, I experienced challenges and simulations designed to test and prepare us for circumstances that could and have come up on the field before. I experienced lack of sleep and new scenarios. I lost my voice twice and still haven’t recovered from the sickness I caught at camp. I encountered things I was very familiar with due to previous trips and things that were wildly unfamiliar. I was set up to test out strengths I possess and expose weakness that cripple me. I was called to step into something bigger. I was broken deeply before my Father, and invited on a romantic honeymoon with the God of my heart. (I totally understand that that may not make much sense at all, but I’m just being real with what happened here)
You see, all through training camp, I was enraptured by the teachings, the seminars, the small group experiences, and the one-on-one meetings with trainers and previous racers, but I felt like I was just experiencing a really good week of church camp.
At first.
It wasn’t until training camp was almost over that I felt my Father’s hand on my back (literally) and encountered a deep brokenness that I didn’t know lived inside of me. I experienced for the first time in my Christian walk of 16 years what it felt like to be stripped of an identity that I had grown up with. I experienced for the first time what it was to be laid bare before the Lord with nothing near to grab onto for comfort or safety. Suddenly, I knew intimately what people meant when they described an identity crisis over a moment when God took from them the previous identity they had lived with and began building a new one rested only in Him.
But here’s the thing, in those unfamiliar moments of utter nakedness before God, I realized how truly safe I was. How comforted He desired me to be, and how desperately He was seeking to call a significant and beautiful change out in me. His Identity was calling out a new one in me, and He was breaking me to the point of having nothing left, except a new willingness to walk into this new life he has offered me.
At training camp, the Lord revealed to me that I have been living by the false hope of counterfeit loves. Love I tried to find in men. In the security of my family. In the safety of my friends. In the contentment of my identity. And in the familiarity of home. But all of those things are just that; counterfeit loves. Don’t get me wrong, these things can be bountiful blessings the Lord pours out on our lives, but they become counterfeit love when they become your only love. They are only false representations of the real thing. When they become your only source of joy, security, love, and contentment, you have fallen to a mirage of what is only meant to be a reminder of Christ’s true love, not a substitute for the real thing. You see, these things are only meant to mirror his love. They are not meant to be the source of all of that.
Folks, I had placed my life in the never fulfilling hope of counterfeit loves. And this is where the Lord began to strip me bare of all of them.
Since training camp, I have been put in several situations where people who have played significant roles in my life have suddenly left those roles. I found myself reaching out to grab onto them and desperately cling to what I’ve known, because the thought of letting familiar and safe things go was truly too much to bear. But as I aimlessly and desperately grabbed at the void in my heart, the Lord tenderly has been reminding me that there is great purpose in Him removing things from my life that had previously been my security. He is gently pulling me out into the unknown where my feet may fail. But in the unknown is where He is surrounding me in His mystery. In His ocean of deep and intimate love is where I am being bent into a beautiful submission that I’ve truly never known. It is where His love trumps my desires and His heart is transplanted in exchange for mine. He is reminding me that though I am leaving a tight knit family who he has blessedly etched into the facets of my heart, and though I am leaving romantic interests, safe and beautifully close friendships, He is the Lord my God who has called me into His unknown not to let me fall and drown, but to give me a new future, a brand new identity, and to remove bitterness, anger, loneliness, and false identities I had come to live by.
Training Camp is only a taste. It was only the cracking of the dam that I believe the Lord wishes to abundantly and graciously drown me in. And I whole heartedly accept.
So if I have the honor to meet with you before I leave for India in 10 WEEKS AND FOUR DAYS, bring some tissues because I cry at everything now. And to be honest, I’m okay with that. I want my life to be marked by tenderness and transparency. And if that means that I cry at every proposal video, worship lyric, or memory that pops into my head, then I’m down for that.
All for His glory.
Because of Him,
Rachel
My team for the next year! Team Flourish!
Don’t mind us. We’re just wearing our purple, crocheted beards to show our Q squad spirit.
Papa Tim overseeing a new challenge we were about to complete!!
Just preparing for a night of interesting simulations. Don’t mind us. We had no sleep.
