This month we’ve shared stories about what it means to be a woman on the Race, and the lessons it took to get to that understanding. One sure way to learn is to live in community.
In fact, ask any World Racer to talk about the parts of the Race that changed them the most, and you’ll be sure to hear the word community. Community is an essential facet of the World Race – living and working with a team of 6-8 other people 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 11 months.
It’s in community that Racers learn some of our most important lessons, and it’s the lifelong friends we make that we remember with the most joy. But it’s not always easy. True community gets messy, and every team has hard days. For most Racers, living in community is both the best and hardest part of the Race.
We’re closing out our series on women with a beautiful story from Kacie Lester of the September 2011 A Squad. Even if you’ve heard this one before, we think that Kacie learned some lessons about jealousy and comparison that extend beyond the Race -and they’re truths we all need to hear again and again.
I learned a lot about comparison last year while I was on the World Race.
Mainly that I needed to wage war against it. And, that my short-ish, rounder-than-Victoria’s-Secret-model-shaped figure, turn-a-shade-of-fire-engine-red-when-I’m-embarrassed face, and alarmingly loud laugh aren’t just beautiful in theory. They’re actually stunning.
And I had to learn this all while living with a beautiful woman who is in every way my physical opposite.
I was particularly upset one day early in the Race as I watched my beautiful teammate go about her day flawlessly – even her messy crying fits and bouts of insecurity were beautiful – and I often wondered how it could be possible at all that I could also be beautiful with my pale skin and boring hair and short (and admittedly thicker) frame.
I’m so different – I speak and think and act and look so vastly differently than this girl who is, in every sense of the word, beautiful.
I would ask myself constantly, “How can I also be beautiful when I’m nothing like this girl who embodies the word?”
I actually sat Stephanie down the week we met and I told her to her face that I probably wasn’t going to like her. She was too perfect and I was sure she knew it, and I cannot get along with conceited girls (which I figured she was, without a doubt).
Then I learned that she wanted to write, I wanted to write – she wanted to sing, I do sing – she used to dance, I used to dance – I paint, she likes to paint – I play guitar, she wanted to learn. Initially, I just saw my obvious inferiority to her, so I saw everything we had in common as threatened. She obviously looked better doing it, so I had to prove that I actually did it better. Competition stacked on top of comparison, and everything got bitter.
That battle with comparison wasn’t just a battle over me. The spirit that was bringing up fear and judgment towards her wasn’t just attacking me. It was attacking unity – the body, the bride of Christ.
It didn’t want me to feel equal to her, and it certainly didn’t want me to love her.
Envy, absolutely. But not love.
And I did not love her.
In fact, there was a night in Romania that I and my blonde, beautiful teammate walked up to our leaders separately, without having discussed it, and calmly informed them that our team simply would not work because we could not live together, and they need to change it. Please and thank you.
We left Romania on the very same team we’d been on when we had arrived. Our eloquent leader had a brilliant (miserable sounding) idea: “Seeing as how you certainly aren’t being separated, you need to decide to love each other. Really love each other. Like, put effort into loving each other.”
I won’t pretend I didn’t begin that endeavor with a “love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you” justification, but motivation being right or wrong, every other morning for a month I gave her a Nescafe 3-in-1 instant coffee packet.
The mornings I didn’t give her one, she gave one to me. There wasn’t coffee where we were living, so these coveted gifts were delicacies. We could have each just kept our own coffee, but giving and receiving it every morning meant sacrificing our treasures and our pride. And, slowly but surely, we learned to love each other over these tiny gifts.
Gift giving turned into praying for each other. As a wise woman (Stephanie) once said to me: “It’s impossible to not be on the same team as someone else when you’re praying for them.”
Praying for each other turned into delivering one another’s notes after we’d prayed, including a word of encouragement. Then we were loving each other – and loving each other well – as sisters and as friends.
Two months later, we were granted our long-gone wish and were put on separate teams to travel and serve with, and we didn’t have a chance to live together again for the remaining eight of our 11 months abroad. We arrived back in America at the end of the Race, and two months later, we became roommates.
Now that I know her heart, I see how often the enemy tries to tell her she’s ugly and awkward looking. The fact that she can look in the mirror as often as she does and see imperfection and ugliness in herself proves to me more than anything that the enemy exists. I ended up teaching her to play guitar and now we worship together in our adorable little Georgia apartment when the enemy tries to get in our business.
Comparison almost robbed me of one of my very dearest friends, simply because I didn’t know she was my very dear friend, yet. All I saw was all the ways we were starkly different, the ways I wanted to be like her, and wasn’t. And the very few ways she wanted to be like me and didn’t yet know how to be.
But the Lord calls us sisters. He calls us united by one body, one spirit, one hope. (Eph. 4:4)
He sees her as flawless – and he sees me as flawless.
My flawlessness doesn’t give her flaws, nor does her flawlessness negate mine. They don’t look the same – but that isn’t a truth that limits the definition of “flawless.” Rather, it infinitely expands the capacity and depth of the perfection of God.
Redemption is perfect in Christ. I am perfect in Christ. She is perfect in Christ.
Who are you competing with? Who do you feel is beneath you? Who are you trying to out-rank?
He or she could be your best friend, your next roommate, the loudest voice of truth in your life, or your very biggest fan. You just might not know it yet because an enemy who hates you is actively trying to change that reality.
Love intentionally. Pray. Encourage one another. And if you aren’t sure where to start, it might be time to start buying some instant coffee packets!
Originally featured on Good Women Project
If this kind of raw, transformative community sounds like something you want or need in your life, why wait? Apply for one of the few remaining spots on our July 2014 routes, and you can start building some of your deepest friendships now.
