But when I hear something that summarizes the books I could write into a few words, it racks me with emotion. I get the whole experience of what would take so long to learn in just a few lines of lyric. Because that is an ability that doesn’t come easy to me, I can appreciate it so much more in others because I know it is a gift from God to be able to do so.
As for the Race as a whole, a collective experience, I thought about what song could possibly contain the essence of my experience. How can you define the trials and triumphs in the most ordinary of years through one song? My year on the Race encapsulated a million emotions and difficulties and lessons and affections, so I pretty much decided that I wouldn’t ever be able to find a song that could describe what the Race meant to me.
Until I went to Training Camp in October and heard Jonathan David Helser. His songs are anointed, to say the least, but among the repertoire of spirit-soaked anthems he and his band pounded out over the week, one stuck with me above all else. And I knew that this song was the heart of my year, with all it’s myriads of pits and pinnacles. This song epitomized the deepest places of my heart, melted away the background noise to the true definition of my year. I would like nothing more than to share these lyrics with you, and also to encourage you to listen to this song for yourself.
I’ve Seen I Am
I looked into the eyes of a lion
I saw the courage in His gaze
I heard him roar my name with passion
As I buried my tears in his mane
The first part of my Race was about realizing that God was a lion of a warrior. Though that war is waged in conviction with His children, it is waged in violence against the enemies of darkness that oppress us. I had enemies hanging off of my spirit left and right, and He destroyed them all. He set me free in the Spirit, which set me free in every other way. It wasn’t easy, letting go of lies I had allowed to define me, but He was there through everything. Nights when I was crying out the pain were the nights when I truly did bury my tears in the mane of God, the most regal of fathers who refuses to let his royal children assume their identity in spiritual poverty and illegitimacy. It all came down to one night in Istanbul, when I saw God’s courage in my teammates, and I was never the same.
I looked into the eyes of a lamb
I saw love face to face
I felt grace destroy my sin
As mercy flowed from his veins
The greatest part of my World Race experience came in the experiencing of seeing love face-to-face. Everywhere I was, it seemed like the veil between Heaven and earth was almost thin enough to see Jesus beside me everywhere I went. Whether I was holding the hand of a dying woman on the stone beds of a Vietnamese nursing home or crying over missing my daddy on the floor in Romania, it was as if I could almost see him, almost touch him, with kinder eyes than I could ever dream up, and a touch gentle enough to balm the deepest grief, all dressed in white… except for when I was running; in those times I always imagined him looking a whole lot like my squadmate, Adam Coleman, the sweatband around his forehead white with the Israeli flag on it (Gotta rep the homeland, ya know), the whole time speaking to me and saying, “I’m proud of you for running… I know you can even go further than you did last time.” And honestly, if running with me in the suffocating heat of Cambodia isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.
I looked into the eyes of a king
I saw the beauty of holiness
I heard the voice of many waters
As worship poured from my lips
I remember one time, during worship, we sang Revelation Song completely prostrated on the floor with our faces to the ground. In that moment, I realized how worthy God is of worship. He is our friend and father (and in some cases, our running buddy) but above all, He is majestic. More glorious than the cathedrals in Dublin, the mountains of Tanzania, the beauty of the Middle Eastern sky at dusk. The glory of all the glories I’ve ever seen is but a corrupt smudge of His glory, which would strike us down a million deaths were we to view it in our mortal condition. In being a King, he shouldn’t be so degraded as to ever entertain our questions or complaints against him, and yet he does, because of his love for us. I am a daughter of that King, and the revelation of this truth to my heart ousted the lies of illegitimacy which my spirit lived under all those years before.
I looked into the eyes of a Savior
I saw love stronger than death
I kissed the scars that bought my freedom
As I laid my head on his chest
God became my best friend that year. I stopped telling the people around me about my problems and I started telling him. I stopped asking the opinions of others and started asking him. When I was disappointed, sad, happy, confused, angry, or uncertain, I went to him… And he never disappointed me. He comforted me, he spoke to me every day, he told me where to go and what to say. He directed me. After realizing that he was, truly, my father and friend, I started treated him like I would my father or my friend. And because he is true to His promises, he answered. He never left me or abandoned me, although it times it felt that way. Many nights, when I was overwhelmed with brokenness or sadness or sickness, I asked for him to, somehow, wrap his arms around me in a way that I could feel it. One night, I woke up and heard Him singing over me. It was beautiful, not like any voice I had ever heard before or since. He sang over me, “Freedom, Freedom, you are freed. Freedom, Freedom, you are freed.”
And I was, and I am, and I am still daily being freed, freed, freed.
I’ve seen I am
Now I know that I am loved
I’ve seen I am
Now I know who I am
I am loved
I am loved
I am loved
I am loved
By the I AM.
loved and not abandoned,
loved and not despised,
loved and not rejected,
loved and not guilted,
loved and not shamed,
loved and not disappointing,
loved not by obligation but for no other reason than to just be loved…
Tell me, what else but this could change everything? Not just everything of what you felt and knew about yourself… But it also means it changes the way you see everyone and everything else.
I am who I am, not because of what I’ve done, not because of who I am, not because I had an amazing-crazy year of discovery and challenge, not because I do everything right or talk about Jesus, not because I can raise the dead or cast out demons or heal the sick or preach the Gospel.
That love changes everything, and it changed me.
