Through their eyes

I can’t tell you how this happens on the race, but somehow when we were not looking these crazy people I have been with twenty four-seven, that sometimes make me want to pull out my hair one minute and hug the next, that have seen me use the restroom on the side of the road, that have had to hold my hair for reason’s you can’t understand unless you have eaten African food, that have seen me through my giggles and tears, that know my favorite candy, that know what makes me tick and what aggravates me, that have seen me on my ugliest day and my prettiest day, that know my hopes, dreams, and fears, that were strangers but 10 months ago…. have become family…

Regardless of what has happened on this race and how well I know all of my “squad mates,” I think I can say with confidence I love them as family. I know the deep dark corners of these people’s hearts and they know mine. It might have taken many months of navigating through these dark tunnels and a lot of pain and tears, but I have seen these parts that most others will never see. 

As most of you know, I have my master’s in counseling and love that I can get paid (or not!) for listening to someone’s heart. When someone tells me something from their heart they are telling me how it beats and it is almost like I am a doctor taking a stethoscope up to their chest to hear the intricate details and rhythm of its beat. I have had the opportunity to hear so many stories this year and every time I am awestruck of the beauty behind it all. Because after all there is true splendor in meeting someone where they are at, if only it is for a moment. A moment when you realize you where there once, a moment when you realize the pain and suffering in their eyes, a moment when you can literally feel the joy, the misery, the love, the suffering they are experiencing. 

This has become especially true on my current team in these past 7 months. The lesson I have learned in all of this is that it seems as though the people we love the most can also be the people we hurt the most. These people I know inside and out are the people I love the deepest, but can also hurt the most….I know exactly what hurts them and sometimes, I am afraid to admit, I still hurt them.

We have what is called feedback. Feedback was designed by some fancy shmancy alumni racer 🙂 who realized…Ummm Hello!!!! We can’t just “do life together” for eleven months without problems, I mean we are Christians, but we are still human for crying out loud! Anyway, it is a time when we get together and tell each other positive things and constructive things about ourselves. A time when we are asked to take down our offendable walls and just listen (not as easy as one may think).

After thinking for much time, I realized I thought this whole feedback thing would get easier…and it hasn’t! I thought these people who where my family (myself included) would want to hear what I did wrong and fix it or maybe since I am a counselor it would be fun to go through feedback….wrong! Instead of getting easier, it has in fact gotten twenty thousand times harder. Now these people that used to be COMPLETE STRANGERS not so long ago, can see into the depths of my soul. They know I am better than the sassy undeserving comment I made under my breath earlier or the eye roll I gave yesterday. They know this because they have seen me at my best. They know I didn't mean to hurt that other person…yet I did it anyway. They want to call me into greatness. And all I get to say in response is…"Thank you." So why is it so difficult to say thank you without defending why I made a rude comment? Why wouldn't I want to apologize for that? Why do I still need to be right? I guess I am still figuring that one out…

The flip side to this is that I have had the amazing opportunity to see myself through more than 6 other people’s eyes. I now see great things I never even knew existed. They have called things out in me I would have never known before…"you are beautiful just the way you are, you have a pure heart, you are a great team leader, you will be a great mother, you are my best friend, you are pure, God loves you more than you will ever know, you are better than that, you deserve better, you are wonderfully and fearfully made, you are perfect…" They see things I would normally miss, beautiful things. Although there are times I literally dread hearing feedback, sometimes bracing myself for the words that are about to leave someone’s lips, I know it is only for the better. I know I am simply a mold that God is shaping and sculpting every day…making me more and more like Him…more and more perfect. My teammates have explained things they have experienced differently. Their lenses and filters used to see and process things are completely different than my own. We have come from different places, we have different lives, we bring different past experiences and feelings, yet we have had the opportunity for our paths to cross if only for a moment in these 11 months and that is truly the beautiful part of this race…