Good Morning to the beautiful person reading this! Yes I’m talking to you!
Before you begin reading any further I want you to read this. 1 John 4:19 “We love Him, because he first loved us.” Now close your eyes and ask yourself, do you understand the depths of His Love for you? It’s one thing to say that you know that he loves you, but do you feel that love? If not let me walk you through an exercise real quick……
Here in just a second I want you to close your eyes (not yet). And I want you to imagine something to the best of your ability. Imagine you are out for a walk in nature and you happen upon a river. It’s a beautiful day and you can feel the warm kiss of the sun’s rays on your face. Maybe there is a forest nearby or maybe some mountains, imagine what you like, but focus on the river. The closer you get to this river you see that it is incredibly wide and possesses the clearest blue waters that you have ever seen before. You can see the stone of the riverbed beneath the raging waters. You look to the east and to the west and you see that you cannot locate the rivers source or its end. It appears as if it stretches out forever. It is not a calm river, it is a wild and raging river. Now imagine yourself wading out into the middle of the river. Its deep and your feet do not touch the bottom. And before you know it you are carried off with the intense and uncontrollable current. You never stood a chance. (Now close your eyes and imagine that very scenario, (seriously go do it)). Now I want you to realize that this river, this wild and uncontrollable river, this river that was as wide as it is deep, this river that had no beginning or end is God’s love. It is God’s love for you, and as you step into the waters you soon realize that you cannot stay above the water. You are drowning, drowning in God’s wild Love for you. For you were born to be loved. God is a faithful and loving father. And he did not create you with the thought, I have created you, so love me. He created you with the thought, look at this beautiful creation that I have made, for it is “very good”, and I love it so. Realize that he is talking to you right now, and telling you that he loves you. And that you don’t have to do anything to earn that love. Isn’t that amazing!? This is something that I experienced in the last 11 days.
Telling you that the last 11 days of my life have been an adventure is a bit of an understatement. For those of you that don’t already know, the last 11 days were spent at training camp for the World Race. It was 11 days full of worship; 11 days full of ministry training; 11 days of interesting food, 11 days spent with complete strangers that all love Jesus; and 11 days of relearning God’s love for me. And it was an experience that I will never forget.
Let me set the stage for you….. nights that consistently stayed in the 40s, rain at the most inconvenient times, and clothes that never seemed to dry, oh! And bucket showers! How could I ever forget the bucket showers! This was reality for the past two weeks as we all lived out of our tents and our backpacks. And I loved every minute of it! Well maybe not the showers . . . . .
But each day was beautiful as the eyes of my heart began to open up to the truth. On day one, they told us to write one thing down that would carry through to each and every day. One phrase. “Born to be Loved.” Simple right? Well this one phrase began to unshackle me from the chains that have been holding me back in my walk with Jesus. And I have never felt more free.
I have always walked with a huge fear hidden away in my heart, and it has been a fear that has had more power over my life than I would like to admit. A fear of disappointment, a fear of disappointing others. I have always been terrified of letting people down, whether it’s my friends, my family, and especially God. And because of this fear, there have been a lot of opportunities to minister to people that I have missed. Because this fear of disappointment has kept me chained in place. It has kept me immobilized. Because what if I do or say the wrong thing? I don’t want to feel that disappointment in my heart. I just want to hear the words, well done my good and faithful servant.
But halfway through the week we were reading Psalm 103 and we were asked to meditate on verses 2 & 3, while asking ourselves 2 questions. Who is he speaking to? And what is he trying to say? The verses are as follows, “Bless the Lord, Oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgives all thine iniquities, and who heals all diseases…” Now being the rebel that I am I read down to the next verse and it changed everything for me. It says “Who redeems thy life from destruction, who crowns thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies….” This was the verse I needed. And when I began to ask who he was speaking to, I instantly felt him speaking to me. And when I asked what he was trying to say, I was instantly reminded of that one little phrase “Born to be loved.” I had only ever wanted to make Him proud but in this moment he told me, you don’t have to do anything for my love. You don’t have to fight for it. You don’t have to be perfect. You can make mistakes. You can fall on your face. You can fail. But it changes nothing. I felt a fathers love in my spirit. A truly unconditional love. All I had to do was stop running and receive it. And in that moment chains were broken. The chains of disappointment were destroyed and this burden that has been weighing me down was broken.
And you, dear beautiful person reading this. I want you to know that this is the Fathers love for you as well. Stop fighting. Stop running. Stop trying to be perfect. Let God love you. This was my biggest take away from camp this week. And no matter what happens from here on out, my life has been forever changed.
Now, it’s hard to condense everything from training camp into one blog post so instead I’ll list out some of the things that went on, and if you ever want to know more please ask me and I would love to talk more about it in depth!
So what did training camp look like?
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Camping for 11 days
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Some amazing . . . . and some not so amazing cultural foods
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I ate a century egg! . . . . and crickets
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Bucket Showers are freezing cold and my lungs were not happy
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Amazing Worship Sessions
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Cultural & Mission Training
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Some serious spiritual warfare
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Man Day!!!!
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Foot Washing
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Helium Hula-hoops??
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From Dolphins to Black ops . . .
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Packing up in the pouring rain
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Unpacking and setting up in the pouring rain
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More rain
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Lifting up our teammates spiritually . . . . and physically
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Dishes and dishes galore
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Squad Wars!!! Pool Noodles, Marshmallows, and dance! (We won . . . cough cough)
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Broken Chains
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Memories of a lifetime
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A new family
These are just some of the things that happened at camp and there are stories behind all of it. So please ask!
Also if you are still here with me thank you so much! If you feel led to do so, may I ask that you consider hitting that donate button at the top of this page? My next deadline is coming up quickly and God uses people just like you to fulfill his will. Just think of it as you moving money from your earthly checking account to your heavenly one, for it is all Gods money. Maybe you don’t feel called to do mission work, but through you giving you are still fulfilling Gods will by helping me bring his love to all people. Help send me to the nations. Help me bring the gospel to those that have never heard his name. And let me know how I can be in prayer for you!
Also here is a picture of my new family:
