Finding my Voice – Digging Deep

Hello friends,

      This past week I had the privilege to attend training camp with my 44 squad mates at the Adventures in Missions campus in Gainesville Georgia. It was an amazing week of almost solid rain and putting up and breaking down tents in the rain. It was raining so hard one day that many of my squad mates decided to make a slip-in-slide just using the rain and a tarp(eventually they used a garden hose). Training camp was amazing and fun, but it was not all happy bunnies and roses. Training camp was hard. I don’t mean in a physical way but in a spiritual and mental way. Everyday we had four to five sessions such as  our identity, God as Father, feedback, sin, contexualation, Freedom in Christ, Holy Spirit, hearing God’s Voice, and many more. All of this to say that I have learned a lot about God but also learned things about myself that I had forgotten or believed. 

    The first morning at camp one of my coaches Kris talked about our identity and worth in Christ. Truly I was so excited to hear what she had to say. The more she talked the truth the more it was hitting home in my heart. “We are on a journey to discover our identity in Christ”. Then we got to the topic of false-selves. This is the point that I was very convinced about. In the past I have used my false-selves to protect me from getting hurt and to hide my true emotions. But I had just put them in a closet in the back of my mind not fully getting rid of them, thinking I might need them in the future. “Dismiss your false-selves by asking God and Holy Spirit to help you get rid of those masks.” “Walk in your true Identity, Surrender all”. I had to tair down those false-selves to the core, to find my true self, know that I am not perfect, and that I am covered by Grace. God has created me to be loved and to love others. He has created me to be in a relationship with him and rest in his peace. He has created me to be an overcomer, “without a test there is no testimony”. There are so many thing I will share but I will share this last thing, “ as a daughter of Christ, if I am looking in the mirror

1. If God created me 

2. If Jesus died for me 

3. If holy spirit lives in me 

Then the true me is a reflection of God, and if I don’t like what I see. What lies am I believing, because God loves me and I am Beautiful in HIS eyes.”

    Then we moved on to the reflective time of the session. We were asked these questions And to pray about them: Who am I, Who does God say you are, What does my false self look like, are there any lies that I am believe about myself, what truths do you (God) want to speak into my life. I lifted all of those questions to God and said I surrendered all of my heart. Through the week he kept showing me what lies i have believed about myself. 

In my next posts I will be answering these questions and sharing how God helped me work through these questions. I decided to split up the blog so that I can spend more time sharing my heart of each of the lessons God has been teaching me. So I am going to be breaking this topic/theme into four parts 

1. Digging deep (THIS ONE)

2. Realization of lies 

3. Bringing to light 

4. Proclaim the freedom and power in Christ

Join me for the next three weeks in my journey in finding my voice in Christ. As I unpack all that God has taught me over training camp.

I want to thank everyone for reading this post and to those who have supported me financially and prayerfully through this God journey, I truly appreciate every single one of y’all. I could not have been able to get this far with out you. So THANK YOU!

With love,

Lydia Strickland