“She’s like salt, she can only be handled in moderation.”
These words were ones that I had carried around and let dictate my life for a very long time. They were words that were spoken about me in high school and they were well deserved but it didn’t make it hurt any less. I was exactly what the Bible warned against. I claimed to be a Christian but was arrogant, mean, and extremely pompous. I thought I knew all the answers and only my answers were the right ones. I couldn’t take advice from anyone and was plenty good at giving it to others…even if it was unwanted. I could be extremely funny but it was always at the expense of others and I loved spreading everyone else’s secrets and hidden skeletons because I somehow felt it made me this indispensible rumor hub. If those rumors, secrets or skeletons happened to belong to anyone reading this I want to apologize and say that you didn’t deserve that and I am sorry.
Well, it all came crashing down on me and I found myself completely alone with not a soul that wanted to be around me. I began to hate myself so much that I didn’t even want to be around me. I started to shut down to everyone and isolate myself. God was the only one I would talk to and even then I was angry and bitter. He slowly began chipping away at the wall around my heart and placing people in my life that would show me it was okay to trust others and how to love and live as Christ. It took me a long time to get to where I am today, which is proud and happy with how God made and makes me, and I can truly say that it was completely by the grace and love of God that I am not that same person.
Coming to training camp I was extremely nervous, since I had been building up walls that kept me barricaded from the rest of the world for years and I knew God was planning to break them down once and for all. He had been working on my heart for the whole year leading up to training camp and showing me that I had so much unchecked baggage I still needed to give to him.
I’m not going to lie. Training camp was really difficult the first few days. I wasn’t connecting very much with anyone, besides my one confidant whom I had established on day one. I started to look around and see how incredible these people were. What on earth was I doing here? I began to feel extremely isolated and undesirable. I was afraid to really open up and talk to people, there was always that little voice in the back of my head telling me to not fully be myself because I was too much to handle, my opinion didn’t matter and I was unwanted. That relentless voice would compare to others around me and fill my heart with lies and thoughts that they’d never like me. I couldn’t shake these feelings of shame and guilt about who I was. I still had so much that I didn’t like or feel was good enough for the world to see. Plus it didn’t matter if I had wanted to share it anyway because eventually they’d see how annoying I was and walk away. God took those thoughts, shame, guilt, envy and the abandonment issues and allowed me to give them up to Him.
I think it was the third day into training camp, we were in evening worship and I had been feeling especially insecure. I told God that if he didn’t show up right then to let me know that this was a safe community, I was going to pack my bags and leave. I had had enough of communities that hurt me and left me feeling empty, abandoned and even more insecure. Then my squad mate next to me had gotten incredible news and those around her began to put their hands on her and pray. Eventually the majority of the room had broken out in a prayer circle with the center changing to whoever had needed prayer. Around 250 people gathering together, lifting a single person up in prayer was absolutely incredible. I had never felt safer in my life and I knew that this was the community God wanted me in and that He was saying to me, “Teagan, when you fall in this community, there will ALWAYS be someone there (more like 56) to offer you their hand and when you have things to celebrate, they’ll be right there praising alongside you.”
Not many days after that we had a talk on shame and the sins we’d been harboring. I was able to fully give up all my shame, hurt and insecurities for the first time, emotionally and spiritually breaking the chains that had held me captive for so long. For the first time ever, I sang out in worship that night. I was able to fully praise God for the work He had done in me and for the fearfully and wonderfully made person He had created. How silly that I couldn’t even lift my voice up to God because I was trapped by the binding lies I had created in my head saying, “you’ll annoy those around you if you sing out loud.” I quickly learned that was a lie from the devil. I had never felt more alive, free or on fire for God than when I had let down all my walls and openly praised the Creator of the universe with everything I had.
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?”-Matthew 5:13. Theologian Albert Barnes explains the verse beautifully; “Salt renders food pleasant and palatable, and preserves from putrefaction. So Christians, by their lives and instructions, are to keep the world from entire moral corruption. By bringing down the blessing of God in answer to their prayers, and by their influence and example, they save the world from universal vice and crime.”
This toxic word in my life developed into a funny revelation; as I had become “salt” to the world, becoming too much to handle, in Christ I had lost my saltiness and had become putrid; poisoning the gospel with the life I was living under the false pretense of “Christ’s name.”
That life led me to a dead end. I don’t want to ever be there again. I want to always be the salt of the earth, adding, not taking away, flavor to those I come into contact with because of Christ in me. This word that used to hold me captive is now a goal I strive and pray for continually. It’s a word and verse that is a constant reminder of who I am without Christ and who I am embodied in Christ.
At training camp God showed me a glimpse of the community I’ll be a part of for the next year and I couldn’t be more excited and quite frankly, nervous! God is going to continue to push me to be vulnerable and step outside of my comfort zone. Thankfully He has placed an awesome and trustworthy group of people around me to constantly be encouraging and challenging me.
