When I Want to Run and Hide

Where ya at Kaci? This has become the question I’ve gotten from my teammates as we both try to understand this whirlwind of emotions I feel regarding the fact that I’ve officially started this world race thing. 

To be honest. I don’t know where I’m at. I don’t know how I feel. Part of me wants to run away and not follow God into this amazing journey. The other part of me is just ready to be in Peru already. 

The time between training camp and launch is a weird time. Training camp is like a big church camp for a bunch of kids who think they’re adults. I learned so much about God, experienced Him in new ways, grew closer to Him. I worshipped Him with all my heart, I laughed with my squad mates and shared my heart with them as I admitted the thoughts of “what am I getting myself into?” As I learned about God’s mission to reconcile the world back to Him I got super excited about the opportunity I have to partner with Him in that and invite people to say yes to the best relationship they can have. I was so ready to go. 

But from training camp, you don’t jump on a plane and start the ministry you’re now stoked about. You jump on a plane and go home for a month. This month looks different for everyone. For me, this month looked like getting closer to people at home. Building up relationships and making it harder to say goodbye. I didn’t have a job, and while I was busy with fundraising events, I also had a lot of free time. Time to have lunch with friends I hadn’t seen in a while and get to know their heart all over again. Time to walk and talk and process life with people who are near to my heart. Time to realize that I could be comfortable at home in that community continuing to build those sweet relationships. Time to think about how much I’ll miss people and just how long I’ll really be gone. (I know, people who’ve done this say it will fly by.. but the longest I’ve been out of the country is 2 months so this is kind of scary.) 

The month home also looked like me trying to process everything I learned at training camp. Between then and now, I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that Truth has to be sought daily. There is a difference between heart knowledge and head knowledge. Head knowledge is simply information. Heart knowledge drives change. I used to believe that when head knowledge became heart knowledge it was there to stay, my life would change and I wouldn’t have to do much anymore. This, unfortunately, is not how it works. I learned that pretty quickly in this month between training camp and launch. 

In my last blog I wrote about how Holy Spirit whispered to my heart that I am pure and beautiful and it was the first time I believed it. It did stir up a change in my heart. I felt renewed and struggles that I had before weren’t as prevalent. However, that does not mean that the enemy stopped trying to convince me otherwise. There were moments in this past month that I felt worthless and less than. I compared myself to others as so many people do and I got frustrated with this because the Truth I had known in my head finally touched my heart and yet I still occasionally believe lies. 

It was at 2 am on a night when I couldn’t sleep that Holy Spirit once again touched me with His Truth. I couldn’t sleep so I was jut staring up at my ceiling deep in thought. I looked at the edges between the wall and the ceiling and realized again that when I had painted it with my mom, I did a horrible job. Seriously, she should have made me use tape because I made so many mistakes and, more often than not, got the blue paint on the places that are supposed to be white. I thought about how when I first finished painting the room, I looked at it and thought “this could’ve been a lot better.” Between then and the night insomnia hit hard, I hadn’t thought of it again. In fact, I walked into my room and thought it looked great. I loved the color I chose and I never looked at the edges. 

In my heart, I felt Holy Spirit telling me “this is how I view you. I see all of you. The whole picture, not just your messy edges. In my eyes, you are beautiful.” The truth that touched my heart at training camp, which I had almost lost sight of, once again was touching my heart. It was in that moment that God began to teach me that I need to feed myself Truth every day. 

I cannot expect the enemy to stop lying to me just because I chose truth once. The enemy is persistent and does not want us to believe the Truth and He will not stop lying. In fact that’s all he does it lie (John 8:44). And this is why we have to remind ourselves of Truth every day. 

When the lies creep in that I am not worthy I will remind myself that I am made in the image of God and he has traded my ashes for a crown of beauty (Genesis 1:27 & Isaiah 61:3).

When I feel like I don’t want to follow Gos into scary things I will remind myself that God is worth dropping all my comforts to follow Him. God is worth the hard goodbyes. Gos is worth “putting my life on hold” to learn from Him and serve the nations. God is so worthy of all things and all praise. (Revelation 4:11) 

When I am having trouble sleeping I will remind myself that I can sleep because God is protecting me. (Proverbs 3:24) 

When I am great and in a good place I will spend time in The Word so that it will be in my heart and when any lie at all tries to creep in I already know what Truth to fight it off with. These next 11 months, while on the world race, I am challenging myself to choose Truth. To really lean into trusting God’s goodness and sovereignty. To remember it’s okay to feel the emotions of missing home or not being able to do the ministry He is leading me into. However, to not let those emotions control me, but to lean on the Lord for everything and Trust Him and His Truth. 

Thank you for reading! Please pray for me as I learn to trust God, and please pray for my team as we head to Peru for ministry with IncaLink in Trujillo. I will post a ministry update as soon as I am able to. 

Thanks again and God Bless! 

~Kaci