I must first be noted that when attempting to explain what has gone on at training camp, I will likely fall terribly short. Usually I feel like I can communicate what I really want to share through writing, but this is difficult because of the great things that have happened, but also the heaviness of them. Further, the first few days felt like a few weeks so I’ll have a few blogs coming soon where I’ll share more details about the awesome and semi-ridiculous things that God has done in my life. He’s showing up and revealing that he’s calling me to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. Trust me, there’s a really good story behind this one.
As expressed in my previous blog post, there were a lot of unknowns about training camp and after the first day I was a little taken aback and wondering what the heck I was getting myself into. This is likely because the World Race culture is unlike anything else I have known and that is not without reason, it’s because of the most genuine belief in the Spirit of God in us and with that Spirit we are God’s plan A for reaching the nations. Plus, these people dance and sing like they are straight out of Africa…because many of them are. So, like many of my new fellow Racers, I came wide eyed over the kind of freedom, life, honor, and love that define these people. But I also came in to camp feeling like a heap of dry bones with good intentions but limited hope and few expectations for the true reality I actually live in.
I have fully come to know that the reality is that dry bones are merely an illusion because the same Spirit that raised Jesus to life is the life in me. Even right after Jesus was baptized in the Spirit He showed us, by going before us into the desert, that true life is possible in the desert because of the Life that indwells, the same life placed in me. It’s a pretty sick reality when it’s put like that. I honestly never thought I had an identity problem, or at least not the kind that is so emphasized for women in the Church. It's always been described as this annoying struggle over feeling pretty or something along those lines. For me, physical identity was never something I worried about, but I can now whole-heartedly admit I was pretty off on my spiritual identity.
The truth is that grace isn’t anything I have to think about or consider how to see or fully experience. It is in me and was put in me the day I was blood bought; it flows in my veins, it is everything I am. I am living, breathing evidence of grace. This may be the simplest conclusion, but it feels so profound to me that I almost feel like I really was entirely missing the point before. At the end of the day, the best I have for the nations before me is the freedom and life I have come to know, the very God that dwells in me and loves to do so. Love is in my bones. Resurrection’s in my veins.
