Thursday, August 07, 2003
Grenada: Impact #1
It's late and I should be sleeping (today, tech. yesterday, I was late for work because no one woke up on time; I didn't because I only had around 3 hours of sleep), but I feel that if I don't get started on writing about Grenada, I'm never going to do it.
That and during a phone conversation tonight I received encouragement that someone really was waiting and interested in knowing what I experienced in Grenada. (Sorry Alan, it's not that I wasn't encouraged by your comment, but I already kind of talked to you about Grenada, so your nudge wasn't quite as strong as it might've been otherwise.) It was a very well-timed comment, actually, because recently I've been thinking about the importance of positive feedback as a motivator. I think it came up during a Sunday school class or something--I can vaguely hear Ben or Dan talking about it in my head--but I can't really remember. Anyway, the details aren't important, the fact is that I'm probably always going to feel more compelled to update the blog which receives the most feedback--RHF--and considering the limitations on my time for blogging, that means that my other blogs will suffer. I've already decided to change the description on LS from "daily" to "frequent". But I digress.
Onto Grenada!
The biggest change that resulted from Grenada didn't come where I expected it to. Going into the trip, the main area I wanted to work on was my ability to share the gospel with strangers. Well, that didn't happen (throughout the trip and afterwards I came to realize that that particular ambition was a little misguided/misplaced, at least for me, but more on that later), but a lesser concern that I had had about openness and transparency with the team became my prime focus in Grenada.
The short version is that I simply made conscious decisions to speak about my true feelings and to stop putting up the perfect Christian face, especially during our debriefing times. In the long version, well, I think it started with our first debrief, which happened, I think, on Day 3, Mon. July 7th. After dinner and clean-up the entire team sat around the table and we were asked to share our feelings on the trip up to that point. If you can remember my journal entry from Day 2, the cold calling evangelism, well, that's pretty much what I shared with the team. As I was speaking I could feel myself getting emotional, choking up and tearing a bit, but even though I hate being "emotional" in public, I was determined to get it all said. It's a bit fuzzy now, but I do remember that I had to choose to share about my self disappointment. I could've just said that I was uncomfortable with the whole thing and left it at that, or even glossed over it and said that even though I didn't get to say much, I was glad that I could at least pray for the people we were speaking to--which was the truth, but not the whole truth. But that's not what happened. I admitted that I had felt like a failure--passing up an opportunity to be bold for God--and that was really a big thing for me.
I mean, sure I have no problem admitting that I struggle with doing devos and things like that, but consciously or not, I've always tried to keep my deepest, most affecting feelings to myself. Anything that means enough to me to make me teary is not something I would seriously think about sharing with others. For one, I wouldn't want to get emotional in front of someone, and then too I'd be afraid of revealing too much of myself.
But at that time of sharing, I think God really impressed upon my heart that the debriefing was another opportunity for me to be obedient to his calling. Here was a chance to make up for my timidity with the people of La Mode. And I think that this really set the tone of the entire trip for me. For time and space's sake I won't talk about every single debriefing time, but I know that for many of them I faced the same choice before sharing: to be open and honest, or to keep my pride and gloss over my real feelings.
Apart from the debriefs, anothher big thing for me in terms of transparency was giving my testimony on the Tuesday night (Jul. 8th). On the same Monday as that pivotal first debriefing, Shamus asked for four volunteers to share our testimonies about sexual purity, and to be totally real about them. As soon as he said that, in my mind and heart, I was just like "oh no"; I knew that "he" was talking to me, but I didn't want to admit it. Right up until the end of our debrief time when Sharon asked us to pray for the volunteers for the testimonies, I was trying to fight it. But as we were praying, I finally gave in and told God that I would give my testimony, even though I wasn't sure that anyone would be able to relate to my experiences and even though I was scared to death.
On Tuesday we had some time at a beach, and while most of the others were playing in the water, I was writing my testimony. The writing went pretty well, actually, but I couldn't get it all organized or done. I don't know, maybe I was in a state of shock or something, but I didn't start panicking until we got to La Mode and the people started arriving.
You might not understand this since I'm not going to share the details of my testimony here (it was right there, but I'm definitely not ready to share these things with the world at large, which is what the internet basically is), but I was completely freaked out by the fact that all the people who came were female. When I was preparing my testimony, even though I didn't really think anyone would relate to my experiences, I figured that they would at least speak somewhat to guys. I didn't think it would speak to girls at all.
I was so totally scared. I thought about just telling Sharon that I couldn't do it after all; what was the point of sharing my most painful and shameful secret when it wouldn't matter to anyone? But I caught myself almost immediately and remembered that I was doing it because God had asked me to, not because I had something to specifically teach to anyone. Then I thought about changing my testimony and taking out the most personal part. I could cater it more to girls and talk about something different. But up to this point I had believed that God was telling me to specifically talk about that one thing, and to ignore that now would be mere cowardice.
So with much fear and trembling, I began. Thankfully by the time I started a couple of guys had come, but I was still facing mostly girls. When I started I was close to tears--you could hear it in my voice--but somehow, through God's strength, as I went on, my voice became clearer, slower and stronger. It had to have been God's doing, because I was still scared out of my mind. Anyway, I got it all said, which was a blessing.
It took some time, but eventually I realized that I felt freer somehow. It helped that no one really talked to me about what I had shared, but just kept treating me like normal, but I think the biggest factor was God. I could feel him there with me, and when I was done, I knew that I had pleased him by obeying his will, and it didn't matter so much to me anymore how what I had said would change the way people looked at me. All that mattered was how God was seeing me at that time.
So yeah, the realization of how freeing it was to confess to people and not just to God about the sins and not so great things in my life, through my testimony, probably contributed to the last thing(s) that occurred to really make me desire to become a more open person. On Thursday of the first week, at the end of a debrief we split into pairs to pray. I was with Syv. We talked pretty honestly about our feeling during the trip, the little things that were bothering us, etc. It was a good time for us to catch up, I guess, since we hadn't really seen or talked to each other that much during school.
Anyway, during our time of prayer, I was convicted of the need to confess and to ask forgiveness for a little grudge, a small hurt that I had been holding inside of me since first year. At the time that it happened I was aware of it, and I had prayed to be able to forgive her because I knew that she didn't even realize how she had hurt me, but even though I had prayed about it several times, and was "mostly" over it, I was still carrying some of the baggage of that hurt around with me, and it was manifesting itself in our relationship. Because I had been so deeply hurt (even though I told myself it was a dumb thing to be hurt over, it still hurt), I had unconsciously distanced myself from her. I've never been much of a phone or ICQ person, but it was really my fear of getting hurt again that stopped me from making more of an effort to keep in touch during the school year. So even though Syv had no idea how I had been hurt by one of her actions, I prayed for forgiveness for holding it against her. And even though it was basically the same prayer I had prayed off and on since the hurt had occurred, this time, I really felt like I had forgiven her and been forgiven. I saw that it isn't enough to keep things between yourself and God when someone hurts you, you have to take it up with that person or you'll never be totally released from the negative feelings.
After I prayed with Syv, I was convicted of three other people that I needed to talk to and to ask forgiveness from. In their cases it wasn't that they had done anything to really hurt me, but that because I had been hurt by a friendship, when certain things happened in my relationship with them, I reacted the same way I did with Syv, I pulled back. Well, one of the people I needed to talk to was also on the team, and it was actually slightly different, but no matter. For the other two, when I got back to Mississauga, I did the extraordinary (for me) and made it a point to arrange a time to talk to them so that I could confess and ask forgiveness. For one I kind of "grabbed" him at the airport and booked him for Sunday lunch, the day after we got back. For the other I went to her house on Monday afternoon--supposedly because I was in the neighbourhood, but actually because I wanted to get my piece said as soon as possible.
In most cases the people whom I confessed to hadn't even noticed my more distant or otherwise altered manner towards them, and I knew that they probably didn't notice it, but I wanted, needed to confess to them anyway because it was damaging for me to keep it inside. And yeah, asking for forgiveness directly from the person you're offending (even if they don't know it) has a lot more impact than just asking God to forgive you for your bad attitude towards them.
So yeah, my apologies if you're totally lost right now. To summarize, the main change in me that happened in Grenada is that I chose to become a more open and transparent person. And it's definitely still a conscious choice for me right now. Since I got back, not only did I grab those two people to talk to them, to confess and ask forgiveness, but I've also made it a point to share my feelings, even about silly things with my best buds, Jen and Syv. I know that's starting pretty small, but it does make a difference.
I always used to wonder whether us three were really good friends, or if we were just friends by circumstances: going to the same church, and going to the same schools at times. Would our friendship hold when we started to go our separate ways, I questioned. And now, after starting to share little things, being more honest about my feelings and not worrying so much about hurting their feelings, I realize that if I didn't feel secure in our friendship, it was because I never gave them my full trust. I didn't trust them to know me well enough to not be hurt by things I wanted to share. If I had believed in them, in us, I would have trusted that they would understand that I spoke out of love and without any intention or desire to hurt them; I would have trusted that they wouldn't feel burdened by my sharing difficulties with them, but that they would desire to share these feelings out of love for me, in the same way that I want to be with them, to share in their times of trouble or sorrow.
Anyway, it's kind of abrupt, but I really MUST sleep! Feel free to comment, ask for clarification/explanation, etc. Oh, and feel free to pass the link on, if (for some strange reason) you'd like to do so.
It's late and I should be sleeping (today, tech. yesterday, I was late for work because no one woke up on time; I didn't because I only had around 3 hours of sleep), but I feel that if I don't get started on writing about Grenada, I'm never going to do it.
That and during a phone conversation tonight I received encouragement that someone really was waiting and interested in knowing what I experienced in Grenada. (Sorry Alan, it's not that I wasn't encouraged by your comment, but I already kind of talked to you about Grenada, so your nudge wasn't quite as strong as it might've been otherwise.) It was a very well-timed comment, actually, because recently I've been thinking about the importance of positive feedback as a motivator. I think it came up during a Sunday school class or something--I can vaguely hear Ben or Dan talking about it in my head--but I can't really remember. Anyway, the details aren't important, the fact is that I'm probably always going to feel more compelled to update the blog which receives the most feedback--RHF--and considering the limitations on my time for blogging, that means that my other blogs will suffer. I've already decided to change the description on LS from "daily" to "frequent". But I digress.
Onto Grenada!
The biggest change that resulted from Grenada didn't come where I expected it to. Going into the trip, the main area I wanted to work on was my ability to share the gospel with strangers. Well, that didn't happen (throughout the trip and afterwards I came to realize that that particular ambition was a little misguided/misplaced, at least for me, but more on that later), but a lesser concern that I had had about openness and transparency with the team became my prime focus in Grenada.
The short version is that I simply made conscious decisions to speak about my true feelings and to stop putting up the perfect Christian face, especially during our debriefing times. In the long version, well, I think it started with our first debrief, which happened, I think, on Day 3, Mon. July 7th. After dinner and clean-up the entire team sat around the table and we were asked to share our feelings on the trip up to that point. If you can remember my journal entry from Day 2, the cold calling evangelism, well, that's pretty much what I shared with the team. As I was speaking I could feel myself getting emotional, choking up and tearing a bit, but even though I hate being "emotional" in public, I was determined to get it all said. It's a bit fuzzy now, but I do remember that I had to choose to share about my self disappointment. I could've just said that I was uncomfortable with the whole thing and left it at that, or even glossed over it and said that even though I didn't get to say much, I was glad that I could at least pray for the people we were speaking to--which was the truth, but not the whole truth. But that's not what happened. I admitted that I had felt like a failure--passing up an opportunity to be bold for God--and that was really a big thing for me.
I mean, sure I have no problem admitting that I struggle with doing devos and things like that, but consciously or not, I've always tried to keep my deepest, most affecting feelings to myself. Anything that means enough to me to make me teary is not something I would seriously think about sharing with others. For one, I wouldn't want to get emotional in front of someone, and then too I'd be afraid of revealing too much of myself.
But at that time of sharing, I think God really impressed upon my heart that the debriefing was another opportunity for me to be obedient to his calling. Here was a chance to make up for my timidity with the people of La Mode. And I think that this really set the tone of the entire trip for me. For time and space's sake I won't talk about every single debriefing time, but I know that for many of them I faced the same choice before sharing: to be open and honest, or to keep my pride and gloss over my real feelings.
Apart from the debriefs, anothher big thing for me in terms of transparency was giving my testimony on the Tuesday night (Jul. 8th). On the same Monday as that pivotal first debriefing, Shamus asked for four volunteers to share our testimonies about sexual purity, and to be totally real about them. As soon as he said that, in my mind and heart, I was just like "oh no"; I knew that "he" was talking to me, but I didn't want to admit it. Right up until the end of our debrief time when Sharon asked us to pray for the volunteers for the testimonies, I was trying to fight it. But as we were praying, I finally gave in and told God that I would give my testimony, even though I wasn't sure that anyone would be able to relate to my experiences and even though I was scared to death.
On Tuesday we had some time at a beach, and while most of the others were playing in the water, I was writing my testimony. The writing went pretty well, actually, but I couldn't get it all organized or done. I don't know, maybe I was in a state of shock or something, but I didn't start panicking until we got to La Mode and the people started arriving.
You might not understand this since I'm not going to share the details of my testimony here (it was right there, but I'm definitely not ready to share these things with the world at large, which is what the internet basically is), but I was completely freaked out by the fact that all the people who came were female. When I was preparing my testimony, even though I didn't really think anyone would relate to my experiences, I figured that they would at least speak somewhat to guys. I didn't think it would speak to girls at all.
I was so totally scared. I thought about just telling Sharon that I couldn't do it after all; what was the point of sharing my most painful and shameful secret when it wouldn't matter to anyone? But I caught myself almost immediately and remembered that I was doing it because God had asked me to, not because I had something to specifically teach to anyone. Then I thought about changing my testimony and taking out the most personal part. I could cater it more to girls and talk about something different. But up to this point I had believed that God was telling me to specifically talk about that one thing, and to ignore that now would be mere cowardice.
So with much fear and trembling, I began. Thankfully by the time I started a couple of guys had come, but I was still facing mostly girls. When I started I was close to tears--you could hear it in my voice--but somehow, through God's strength, as I went on, my voice became clearer, slower and stronger. It had to have been God's doing, because I was still scared out of my mind. Anyway, I got it all said, which was a blessing.
It took some time, but eventually I realized that I felt freer somehow. It helped that no one really talked to me about what I had shared, but just kept treating me like normal, but I think the biggest factor was God. I could feel him there with me, and when I was done, I knew that I had pleased him by obeying his will, and it didn't matter so much to me anymore how what I had said would change the way people looked at me. All that mattered was how God was seeing me at that time.
So yeah, the realization of how freeing it was to confess to people and not just to God about the sins and not so great things in my life, through my testimony, probably contributed to the last thing(s) that occurred to really make me desire to become a more open person. On Thursday of the first week, at the end of a debrief we split into pairs to pray. I was with Syv. We talked pretty honestly about our feeling during the trip, the little things that were bothering us, etc. It was a good time for us to catch up, I guess, since we hadn't really seen or talked to each other that much during school.
Anyway, during our time of prayer, I was convicted of the need to confess and to ask forgiveness for a little grudge, a small hurt that I had been holding inside of me since first year. At the time that it happened I was aware of it, and I had prayed to be able to forgive her because I knew that she didn't even realize how she had hurt me, but even though I had prayed about it several times, and was "mostly" over it, I was still carrying some of the baggage of that hurt around with me, and it was manifesting itself in our relationship. Because I had been so deeply hurt (even though I told myself it was a dumb thing to be hurt over, it still hurt), I had unconsciously distanced myself from her. I've never been much of a phone or ICQ person, but it was really my fear of getting hurt again that stopped me from making more of an effort to keep in touch during the school year. So even though Syv had no idea how I had been hurt by one of her actions, I prayed for forgiveness for holding it against her. And even though it was basically the same prayer I had prayed off and on since the hurt had occurred, this time, I really felt like I had forgiven her and been forgiven. I saw that it isn't enough to keep things between yourself and God when someone hurts you, you have to take it up with that person or you'll never be totally released from the negative feelings.
After I prayed with Syv, I was convicted of three other people that I needed to talk to and to ask forgiveness from. In their cases it wasn't that they had done anything to really hurt me, but that because I had been hurt by a friendship, when certain things happened in my relationship with them, I reacted the same way I did with Syv, I pulled back. Well, one of the people I needed to talk to was also on the team, and it was actually slightly different, but no matter. For the other two, when I got back to Mississauga, I did the extraordinary (for me) and made it a point to arrange a time to talk to them so that I could confess and ask forgiveness. For one I kind of "grabbed" him at the airport and booked him for Sunday lunch, the day after we got back. For the other I went to her house on Monday afternoon--supposedly because I was in the neighbourhood, but actually because I wanted to get my piece said as soon as possible.
In most cases the people whom I confessed to hadn't even noticed my more distant or otherwise altered manner towards them, and I knew that they probably didn't notice it, but I wanted, needed to confess to them anyway because it was damaging for me to keep it inside. And yeah, asking for forgiveness directly from the person you're offending (even if they don't know it) has a lot more impact than just asking God to forgive you for your bad attitude towards them.
So yeah, my apologies if you're totally lost right now. To summarize, the main change in me that happened in Grenada is that I chose to become a more open and transparent person. And it's definitely still a conscious choice for me right now. Since I got back, not only did I grab those two people to talk to them, to confess and ask forgiveness, but I've also made it a point to share my feelings, even about silly things with my best buds, Jen and Syv. I know that's starting pretty small, but it does make a difference.
I always used to wonder whether us three were really good friends, or if we were just friends by circumstances: going to the same church, and going to the same schools at times. Would our friendship hold when we started to go our separate ways, I questioned. And now, after starting to share little things, being more honest about my feelings and not worrying so much about hurting their feelings, I realize that if I didn't feel secure in our friendship, it was because I never gave them my full trust. I didn't trust them to know me well enough to not be hurt by things I wanted to share. If I had believed in them, in us, I would have trusted that they would understand that I spoke out of love and without any intention or desire to hurt them; I would have trusted that they wouldn't feel burdened by my sharing difficulties with them, but that they would desire to share these feelings out of love for me, in the same way that I want to be with them, to share in their times of trouble or sorrow.
Anyway, it's kind of abrupt, but I really MUST sleep! Feel free to comment, ask for clarification/explanation, etc. Oh, and feel free to pass the link on, if (for some strange reason) you'd like to do so.
