What Really Happened at Training Camp

In the last few weeks since training camp, I just keep repeating the phrase “God is so awesome!” Sometimes I change it up and say things like “God is so so cool!” or “God is AMAZING!” 

And I feel like before training camp, I had said those things, but never truly meant it on a heart level. I would say them in passing or under my breath or something good would happen and I would think “woah that’s cool God.” But in all of those instances, the thought was as fleeting as the moment was. It was there, then gone, and then forgotten about. 

However, this all shifted after training camp.

Here is a little back story. 

At training camp, I met with all three parts of the Trinity in a whole new way. I started to see Jesus as a friend and someone who was fighting for me. I felt the Holy Spirit wash over me and bring me a new found sense of peace. And while both of those interactions have changed my whole walk, the most important shift of mindset was how I now look at God the Father.

There is a whole long story (for another time) about why I looked at God the Father in a very skewed way, but it wasn’t until my one-on-one with my Squad Mentor, Stephanie, that I realized just how off my mindset was towards God the Father.

One of the craziest parts about this is that I had no idea that this was even happening inside of me until I sat down to talk with Stephanie.  My twisted way of viewing God was all happening subconsciously.  After our talk, my mind starting spinning.  I was trying to pin down all of the lies that I had been believing for so long.  What was the root of my skewed view of God? And now that I was aware of it, how on earth was I supposed to move forward and grow in this area? 

As the week of training camp progressed, I felt like every day there was some very specific instance that kept leading me down this road towards understanding, on a heart level, who God is and what He says about me. 

At this point, my meeting with Stephanie was a few days behind us.  My mind was still racing with what I needed to surrender to God in order to see Him in a different way and I was trying to figure out what was holding me back from that surrender.     During worship that day two things happened: We were singing No Longer Slaves by Bethel Music. In that song there is a line that says I am no longer a slave to fear I am a child of God

And something about that line, in that moment of worship felt like God was breaking down all of the walls around my heart that I had built up, ripping them away, telling me exactly why I was afraid to surrender fully to Him and then giving me my new identity in Him. I immediately found my journal and wrote in it that “today is the first time that I have been able to sing those lyrics and believe them.”

After journaling, I stood back up and just asked the Lord to send someone to pray for me. Worship continued and eventually came to an end and no one had come to pray with me.  And I was a little bit bumped at first, but I knew that I could ask someone to pray with me later.

The session continued and at the end, the MC stood up and asked all of the racers to close their eyes. Then asked all of the squad leaders, mentors, coaches, etc. to walk around, place hands on each of racers, and pray for us. Woah. Talk about the Lord answering prayers. But just wait, it gets even better! I had my eyes closed and was talking with God about taking away all of that fear that I had inside of me that I didn’t even know was there.  Then a leader came over, placed one of their hands on my head and (I assume) started silently praying over me. BOOM! Immediately, I mean as soon as my leader placed their hand on my head I could see this darkness being lifted out of my head and it was being replaced with light. And I know that may sound silly because when you have your eyes closed, it’s dark and nothing changes, but this was…different than anything that has ever happened to me before. I felt a sense of peace wash over me and when that darkness left my mind, all of the heaviness and burdens went with it. Oh how I wish I knew who it was so I could give them a big giant hug!!

Eventually that leader moved on to a different racer and I was back talking with the Lord on my own.  Then, another one of my leaders comes over to me, places her hands on my shoulders, and says “I have been praying for the Lord to give me a word for you, and I don’t know if this means anything to you, but the word that keeps coming up is fearless.” 

  ……. *insert long dramatic pause here* let that sink in.  

Fearless. Fearless. I am no longer a slave to fear…. 

In one of our squad sessions my whole squad, our coaches, mentors, and leaders were all in a big circle.  We also had two squad leaders from Gap Year (another World race program).  From my understanding, these two other leaders didn’t necessarily have to be there, but they were free and made the time to step in and become a part of our little family that we were starting to form. But…back to the point of the story. We were all sitting in this big circle and somehow this idea of how we look at the Father got brought up.  I immediately perked up and thought, weird this is what I have been trying to navigate all of camp but there is no way that any of my leaders have struggled with this same thing. Ha! Boy oh boy was I wrong.

One of the squad leaders from Gap Year talked very briefly about how she had kind of been wrestling with the EXACT same thing I had been wrestling with in regards to how we saw God the Father. 

After our big group session we were able to find a time to chat about this struggle she had been walking through and the one that I just stepped into.  She was able to speak life into me, give me encouragement, and give me practical steps moving forward.  It was also just nice to sit down and just chat with something who got it.  I didn’t have to try to explain every little detail or my thought process behind everything because she had been in a similar place and just understood what I was verbally processing through during our conversation. Was it a coincidence that we just happened to be in the same group? I don’t think so.

To say that God the Father was running after me at training camp is an understatement.  Looking back on that time and processing through it, I feel like I was the one that He left the 99 to save.  He was running after me.  He was running after me not because of something that I can do for Him but because He loves me. 

He left the 99 for me, and He would do the same for you.