Training Camp.
Two weeks ago, those two words caused anxiety and excitement. As I prepared for the next step in my World Race journey, curiosity and nervousness consumed me. What would happen at Training Camp? Would I like my squad, my team, the AIM staff? What things would God show me, and was I prepared for them? Had you asked me if Training Camp and the World Race excited me, I would have answered yes. However, the excitement paired itself with intense anxiety at times.
Then, Training Camp. Pulling in to camp with my new best friend and squadmate, Adam, the anxiety, nervousness, and excitement burst out. Both of us were shaking and laughing, so happy to have arrived, yet so unprepared for what was to come. The first night, the session was on expectations. Now, if you had asked me before Training Camp about my expectations, I would have replied honestly that I was trying not to have any. AIM purposefully keeps Training Camp a big mystery for future Racers. But clearly I had some, because God blew them out of the water.
It's time to admit something. For so long, I have felt trapped. I've felt so burdened by apathy and depression, by not feeling loved and accepted by people. On the outside, I tried to keep up appearances, but I could feel my heart hardening as I embraced sarcasm and cynicism to keep myself from feeling. Any confidence I felt was forced and turned into pride and judgment. In the deepest parts of my soul, I grieved. I wanted so badly to walk in the light of God's presence, but I wasn't sure how to get there, or even if God thought I was worthy enough to walk with Him. The weight of my guilt and shame was overwhelming.
But oh, how He loves us!
The first few days of camp were the most intense spiritual and emotional days of my life. God broke me of my expectations, my apathy, my guilt, my shame, my pride. He shook me to the depths of my soul. I cried more in the first two days of camp than I have in my life. Deep, wrenching sobs as God flooded my heart with His presence and pruned away all the weeds I had allowed to grow. He is all He promises and so, so much more. After I surrendered and laid my heart bare to Him, He took all the pain I had been feeling away. He showed me His face and His love more clearly than I had ever seen in my life, and He surrounded me with people who loved on me, encouraged me, and prayed with and for me. The entire experience is hard to put into words, but know that God did a lot of work in my heart this week.
And now? I am free! I'm walking in true confidence that I am a beloved daughter of the One True King. I have actually had people here at home ask if I'm in love. There is pure joy in my life now. I was redeemed before, a child of God that had accepted Christ as my Savior. Yet I still tried to bury myself in my guilt over sin, not accepting that Christ longs to be more than my Savior. He aches to be my everything. And now? Now He is. It's a beautiful thing.
