I asked my Instagram followers what questions they had for me about World Race Gap Year, so I am slowly going to start answering them! If you have a question that you want me to answer, dm me, email me, text me, or send a carrier pigeon and I’ll answer it!
Question 1:
What has God been teaching you during your time with Gap Year?
Being a leader is everything I expected, and nothing like I expected all at the same time. I feel so deeply that God is going to use this time as one of immense growth and of immense grace.
At the beginning of leader training, I felt the nudging of God to stop wearing makeup. It was an odd request so I honestly didn’t think anything about it. But rather quickly, God revealed that I was trying to hide behind a mask of perfectionism and not wearing makeup was an outward sign of an inward change that He was wanting me to walk in.
During my Race, a lot of what God dug up and revealed to me was that people did not want a perfect version of myself; they just wanted me. I was striving and EVERYONE could tell, except for myself. Perfectionism is something that I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. I learned so much about walking in the freedom of being imperfect during my Race and in CGA.
But here I was, about to be leading people and I put the mask back on. I was trying to be something that I wasn’t. I was trying to be someone that God didn’t create me to be.
When I ask God what my identity is in Him, I get the same answer over and over. He says, “my beloved, imperfect daughter of the Most High Ruler.” I know that those seem like random words strung together, but to me they mean everything. Let me explain.
Beloved: dearly loved (darling; dear; precious; adored; favorite) [to know that when God looks at me, He sees me as Christ is everything; He doesn’t see my sin or my imperfections, He sees His favorite *1 John 1:7]
Imperfect: not perfect; faulty or incomplete (flawed; defective; unfit)
Most High: Elyon (name of God used quiet often in the Psalms)
Ruler: a person exercising dominion (leader; sovereign) [this one is really personal for me because the name “Regan” means “little ruler” or “regal,” meaning that every time someone calls me by name, they are declaring that I am His]
He specifically calls me imperfect because I can never be perfect. He is perfect. I am not. I can never be without Him. I have latched onto the word perfect for so long that I spoke it over my identity, I tried EVERYTHING to be perfect. But He declared that I don’t have to have the pressure of being perfect because He is. And He always will be.
So back to this mask that I was hiding behind. I had always felt like the beginning of Luke 12 was brought up to me in my quiet time, but I never really thought anything of it because this is what it reads in the ESV translation:
In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. -Luke 12:1-3
I understood what was being said, but it never resonated with me or made a big impression on me. That was until earlier last week that I read it in the Message translation.
By this time the crowd, unwieldy and stepping on each other’s toes, numbered into the thousands. But Jesus’ primary concern was his disciples. He said to them, “Watch yourselves carefully so you don’t get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town. -Luke 12:1-3
You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. Ouch. I am learning what it means to drop the mask in an authentic way. To bring out the person that God created me to be in her entirety. To lead Gap E as unapologetically myself as I possibly can, with the guidance and support of the One who created me. It has been a roller coaster of a ride to walk this out, but it has been so FREEING! I still have a long way to go in this walk with God in fully releasing my perfectionism. But I am loving where I am in this crazy journey. And I love that I get to do it in the presence of Gap E.
JUST TWO GIRLS WALKING IN A WHOLE LOT OF FREEDOM
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