As promised, I have more to say about Training Camp! Part of the delay for this post was that I have been reflecting and trying to get my thoughts in order. I would have broken it up to make it shorter but this all needed to be in one post to show how incredible it was.
Let me start by explaining the title of this post. Training Camp was a week-long light bulb moment. You know, when all of sudden understanding clicks and something that used to seem so confusing or unbelievable makes sense? Now, I love movies and quoting them. To illustrate my feeling of the light bulb moment I’d like some help from the wonderful film, Despicable Me. If you haven’t seen it you should watch it immediately after you finish reading this post. For those that don’t know, the main character, Gru, is trying to break into a different villain’s home. After a number of unsuccessful and somewhat painful attempts, he is rewarded by watching three little girls selling cookies gain entry with ease. Please enjoy.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHaERIvFNE
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I think this speaks to the way many Christians operate in their relationship with God. We have all heard that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace. It is unconditional. We simply have it by believing in Jesus Christ. Gru’s failed attempts to infiltrate Vector’s lair can represent all the things we think we have to do to keep or earn God’s love, but until we have a light bulb moment of understanding that we really can’t do anything to earn it we will never fully enter the awesome presence of God’s grace. Even the title of the movie is applicable: Despicable Me. We all have and will likely feel that way again, but God’s grace is sufficient. His mercies are new every morning.
How does this apply to my Training Camp experience? I’m so glad you asked! I do want to let you know that I was initially hesitant about sharing all of the details that I’m about to, however, I realized I would be depriving you all of hearing an incredible story of God’s love. This is a story of how amazing God is and how I was fortunate enough to be the one to experience it.
I tend to be a person who holds my emotions close. If I were a poker player, my poker face would rival that of the guards at Buckingham Palace. OK, you’re right, I’m exaggerating, but I do not express my emotions easily. I’m a logical person and reason through things. I’ve known that this would be challenged for the better throughout the World Race so why not start at Training Camp eh?
After the first couple of days at camp, I felt like I had unintentional walls up around my heart. I couldn’t identify why nor could I figure out how to tear them down. After a session about the power of praying in regards to healing, we were directed to form circles and pray for healing for those who asked. After two girls that I was with went, I asked for prayer. My request essentially involved praying for the walls to come down and figuring out where they were rooted. I was beginning to have some suspicions but wanted more clarity. One of the girls in my group asked me where I carry most of my stress. It’s in my shoulders and let me tell you, they were TENSE at the beginning of camp. This will be important later.
I can’t keep all of the days straight but a few days later our squad did a prophecy night. What that looked like was splitting the squad into two lines. One line would go pick someone in the other line and just simply listen to hear what God wanted for the other person. Right before we did this I had told the squad that butterflies were significant for me. I had been trying to identify where I was in the process and the image of cocoons kept coming to mind. I verbalized this. When it came to be my turn to be spoken to, the person told me that I would be breaking out of the cocoon sooner than expected. How right she was.
After that exercise, we split up into groups of about seven. All of us closed our eyes and a staff member walked around and silently tapped a person in the circle. Everyone who wasn’t tapped was then supposed to listen and say whatever came to mind for the unidentified person. I was tapped for the second round and what was said absolutely floored me because of its accuracy and the fact that none of my squadmates know my full life story yet. Four different statements really hit home:
1. I see you carrying a backpack very weighted down and exhausted. You then remove the backpack and feel free.
2. I see bars like a jail cell going away. God wants you to know you’re free from past sins.
3. I see a flower that’s losing its petals. You need to nourish it if you don’t want the petals to all fall and you need to let down your walls to do that.
4. I see you being held in God’s arms resting in His peace.
After they finished I was completely overwhelmed. By that point, I had realized that the walls I still had up were the result of a lack of forgiveness of myself and an incomplete acceptance of God’s grace. I went and had a long chat with the Lord that night. I cried and kept asking God to remove the burdens that I felt like I was carrying and to allow me to feel all of His love for me. Eventually, I saw/felt Jesus remove my backpack and put it on his back. He also kicked down the jail cell door and found me in a fetal position. He knelt on his knees and engulfed me in his arms. All I wanted to do at the point was sing. So I did! By myself, in the dark, in the woods of Georgia, I sang How Great Thou Art and Amazing Grace. Those songs have never meant so much to me. I went to sleep feeling so much lighter and so gloriously free.
You would think that the work was done there right? Yeah, me too. Nope. There was more to be done.
The following night we had a speaker come in. Well, I say speaker, but he didn’t give a talk like what you might be picturing. Worship was unbelievable. The Lord was present in that place. It was so cool. The speaker just went with it. He walked up to different people and started speaking truth into their lives. Eventually he pulled all of the staff up front and told us that if we felt at all inclined we should go speak with one of them. I knew I had two conversations that needed to happen and kept praying that if the Lord wanted someone to speak to me to send them until the other two staff members were free. Suddenly a girl popped up and asked if she could pray for me. OK, cool, answered prayer right off the bat.
When I finished speaking with her, the first staff member was available. I walked up and she asked me what I wanted. My response was that I wanted the burdens I had been feeling to truly be lifted off. She followed that by saying, “Let’s see what the Lord has.” The following is a journal entry that I wrote that night about the experience:
“Sat in silence holding hands. Felt a calm sweep over me…huge calm, shoulders relaxed by inches. So much calm, almost like a trance. She gradually flipped my hands over and I sat there hearing over and over:
You’re free daughter, you’re free daughter, you’re free daughter
Then my hands started gradually moving apart and click from being face up to by my sides, like breaking chains off my wrists. Then I saw my heart being taken out of my chest after I felt a small spasm, almost like a defibrillator shock only on a MUCH smaller scale. Once my heart was taken out it was cracked like Rafiki cracks the coconut (see link below) leaving only the soft, inner part. Then He (Jesus) kissed it and put it back. I physically felt it in my chest, a warmth.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Ln04baGik
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I eventually opened my eyes and told the staff member what I saw. She told me to write it down because it was important. Good call!
Stick with me folks, I know this is getting long but it’s almost done.
I still felt the urging to talk to the other staff member. So, despite feeling like somewhat of a prayer hog I obeyed and went to speak with her. We talked about several different things but the most striking was what she led off with. Without me having told her about any of my previous conversations that night she said that the burdens that I was feeling weren’t mine and God didn’t want them to be. She told me to let them go even if it meant a finger at a time.
So let me boil all that happened down into a brief summary:
I began camp feeling like I had unintentional walls up and having my shoulders be identified as the place where I carry stress. I was feeling burdened. My squadmates told me they saw me being freed of those burdens (without having been told about them). After being asked what I wanted and mentioning that I wanted the burdens gone, my shoulders relaxed more than they have in a long time and the walls around my heart were removed. A second conversation happened where I was told that the burdens weren’t mine and this was also from someone who hadn’t been told about them.
God is so good. I am, we are, so free to be loved by Him if we let Him in. He can carry a lot, that Jesus. I mean, He carried the weight of all sin and survived so He can for sure take on my backpack. Rafiki’s laughter perfectly sums up how I feel about all of this. Phew.
LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT BULB
