I only wish you could have been in my shoes as I entered into the first morning of training camp. After meeting my team in the airport the day before and tenting out with them that night, I was ready and excited for the week at hand. It was the beginning of a most eventful week, even more so than I ever anticipated. Little did I know I started the week by being chased. The kind where you don’t actually know you’re being chased until they grab you and stare you in the face.
So I obliviously walked into the Training Center ready to learn all about this journey and mission I signed up to go on.
Our first activity was worship, a time to sing and praise the God we claim to be on this journey for. We sang one song and then we began to sing the song “What a Beautiful Name”. The lyrics begin with,
“You were the Word at the beginning
One with God the Lord Most High
Your hidden glory in creation
Now revealed in You our Christ”
No sooner than I sang those words, without even realizing the depth of the words I had just sung, the man who had been chasing me down was right in front of me, it was Jesus. I fell to the floor in a seated position and began to become overwhelmed by His presence there with me. Fortunately, He embraced me with an overwhelming amount of love. He put his head up to mine and kissed my face. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
I’m sure you’re wondering how can an unseen God be seen? Or an untouchable God be felt? I had been singing with my eyes closed, and just as with the realness of a dream, the realness of His being was before me. The comfort of His being settled in around me.
I continued to have tears of overwhelming love stream down my face as I sang the lyrics,
“What a beautiful Name it is
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ my King
What a beautiful Name it is
Nothing compares to this
What a beautiful Name it is
The Name of Jesus”
The song took on a whole new meaning for me in that moment AND so did my relationship with Jesus.
You see, I’ve known God the Father for a long time. I totally believe God created the world and everything in it. Just look at the depths of the ocean or the mere number of trees in the forest. Creation is undeniable. AND I know the Holy Spirit lives within me. That little voice who tells me to buy someone’s coffee, or call a friend, yea, that’s Him. And of course I know Jesus is the Savior of the world, I’ve just always viewed Him as a friend, I think I friend zoned Jesus, of all men. Lol
BUT here He was pursuing a lover’s relationship with me. After that time of worship I was like, “Okay, Jesus this is really cool you can love me like that. This is going to be fun!” And so I figured I’d spend the whole week getting to know Jesus as my lover. Well, boy did I underestimate what that would look like!
The very next day at the end of worship, we were invited to pray individually with one of our leaders about a “cap” we may be putting on an area of life. I didn’t want to admit it and don’t really know if I fully understood it or not, but I knew that the Holy Spirit told me to say “my cap is on my relationship with Jesus” Obviously I was crying again because that’s what happens when Jesus literally stares you in the face and then kisses you. Lol. So my leader, Amy, asked me why I think that is my cap and apparently, I have pain I’ve been holding onto because that was my answer to her. “PAIN”. We prayed and that’s the moment I realized I was friend zoning Jesus based on human let down, not His let down.
Not even two full days into this training camp and I felt like a new woman. Not to mention I was learning things about myself and about God totally unrelated to the purpose of this camp, or so I thought. I was left thinking “Huh?! What else is there I don’t know, Jesus?”
So, in the consistent nature of who God is, I was met by Jesus again the very next day. This time, shortly after worship we had been asked to envision a safe haven, where we would like to meet with Jesus. I found myself standing on a mountain top looking into the great unknown of the world. It was wonderful and as I turned to look around the rest of the mountain I saw Jesus standing behind me, as if He had just come up the mountain himself. It felt like a moment where you get surprised by your best friend or your sister and you can’t help but feel like a dog with the zoomies. Running to hug them but then running around cheering with excitement like “NO WAY, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE HERE!!!” So Jesus was like, “come on, let’s go check out the view.” And so we did. We sat next to each other on the mountain top, quiet and still, I never wanted that moment to end. But then, Jesus said, “Get up, it’s time to go on” and although I didn’t want to, we did. We left that mountain top and continued on the trail. And just like that, the day continued on as well.
Day four during worship the pursuit didn’t end. Jesus REALLY wanted me to understand His love for me and His closeness to me. Every time I thought “I got it now, Jesus you love me” He was like “Lol, I’m not done loving you, you don’t even know the half of it!” So in worship we were asked to put out our hands to Jesus and then place something in it that we needed to give up to Him. I bet you might be able to guess what I felt led to put in my hands and hand over to Jesus. Certainly, my beating heart, right out of my chest. Cool. I just remember thinking “Jesus, I don’t know what you’re going to do with that thing, but you can have it.” And just like that, Jesus took my heart into His hands and is now holding it for me, for safekeeping I think.
So Jesus made it pretty darn clear that He is the keeper of my heart, my closest love, one that will traverse mountains with me. Woohoo, really cool stuff! Yet I began to wonder, “how can I even process all this while trying to be present in the physical learning and training and camping I have to do?” I tried to be present in every moment of camp while being in awe of my new found love in Christ.
Fast forward to the very last night of training camp, after we had camped, and hiked, and slept on the floor and slept in the pouring rain, and worshipped and learned all about intimacy with God, community with others, the mission of the WorldRace, and built a squad out of strangers, Jesus met me one more time.
On that last day of training camp, we learned about our roles amongst our teams, had squad wars which is basically a pep rally amongst all three squads heading out in August, and had a baptism ceremony. Did I mention all of this happened in the pouring rain? Because in Georgia it rains EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Lol. Anyways, despite being soaked from head to toe we headed into the training center for one last worship time. A time to thank God for all he had done throughout the week, all He will do throughout the next year, and a time to celebrate the journey ahead. During this time, it is normal for the Holy Spirit to give a word of encouragement from one participant to another. Literally people walking up to each other “at random” and speaking encouragement into their lives. It generally is exactly what the person receiving needs to hear because that is how cool our God is. So as we were worshiping I was hoping God would give me a spoken word for someone else but also a spoken word for myself. What do you think Jesus did next?!
Wouldn’t you believe it?! At the moment worship ended a complete stranger, someone I had not talked to at all all week walked over to me to say she needed to tell me something but wanted to go in a quieter space. I followed her, Maddie, I would come to find out, into a backroom thinking what could she have to say to me?!
She said “As worship started you stood out to me across the room. I didn’t know why so I kept praying about it. Then the Spirit told me I needed to give you my ring.” PAUSE picture me with my brain about to explode in awe at this moment but trying to hold it together. She continued, “I got this ring on my race when God was pursuing me as His BRIDE”. Y’ALL!!!!!!! I fell to the floor in tears of awe. LIKE WHATTTTTTT!?!?
You see, Maddie has no idea who I am, the past I’ve walked through or the week I’ve had of Jesus pursuing me as His love, as His bride. She had no idea that I had been divorced, broken-hearted or continuously searching for another earthly love prior to arriving at camp that week. All she knew was what the Spirit spoke to her which was to give me this ring. God used Maddie to bring me the ultimate gift of His love.
So basically Jesus chased me down, pursued me all week long with His love and I’m engaged to Jesus now. HAHAHA! What a dream, what a gift, what a story!
Stay tuned for updates and save the dates!!
