A Life Transforming Event like no other :)

ESOAL. The one thing I had been dreading and freaking out about since I arrived at The Honor Academy. I remember Wednesday at my ministry placement in LD. The day it would start. Anytime after 1:00 they said. My trash bags: one filled with a sleeping bag and extra socks and the other filled with clothes and shower stuff for after it was over were on the football field and at the pavilion. Phone calls were yet to be completed in Leadership Development and every one's anticipation was at it's peak.

I only knew that I was not. I only knew that I was going into it without an inch of myself. I knew that God would be the only one that could get me through it. I was freaking out on the inside. And I know everyone could see it on my face. I got off of work at 8:00pm. We normally have what they call Freedom Services on Wednesday nights in the auditorium at 8:00 so I headed over there right after work. Everyone thought we would have the service then they would call us at midnight and it would start. Sadly, that wasn't the case. :P When we got in there, there was no band. poo. We all sat down in the chairs and a retired Navy Seal came up and started sharing. It was really great but ended far too soon. Then Heath Stoner came up and said that we had 20 minutes to go back to our dorms, change, and meet back at the Anvil. It was go time.



Fast forward. I'm sitting here in LD with 78 ant bites on each leg, feet swollen like a pregnant lady, and all the while feeling totally accomplished in Christ. I'm a different person. ESOAL was hard. ESOAL was mentally breaking. ESOAL taught me to humble myself and taught me the meaning of people lifting you up when you can't. It taught me the power of perseverance. It taught me that when I can't HE CAN. It taught me the power of the mind. It taught me the power of Unity. It taught me the insignificance of my sufferings in comparison to Christ. It taught me to worship when I didn't want to. It taught me how to react when people are screaming in your face that you are weak. It taught me how much strength I had. It taught me that it was ok to cry in front of people. It taught me to lose the fear of man (baha, because we all smelled pretty amazing, let me tell you :P) Most importantly, it taught me the power that Christ HAS given me.

It rained the first couple days of ESOAL pretty much non stop. I learned to hate the rain. (haha, just kidding but seriously.) The first night we had to sleep on the Anvil without a sleeping bag curled up next to each other in the rain. My aunt actually told my cousin and I that she woke up in the middle of the night with our faces in her mind with our helmets in the rain cold (though I didn't see Sarah ever because she was in a different company then me). Very cool. We had about 2.7 inches of rain fall during ESOAL entirely. The rain eventually became routine.

The rain taught me that I could be completely miserable and still persevere. 50% of the ESOAL participants rung out during the first couple days. It was so easy to see friends ring out and start to think, "It won't be that bad if I rung out, I mean so many other people are." Our Major would constantly bribe us with things to ring us out...chocolate chip cookies, a bath at his house, less work. Every single time I would start to think those thoughts I would square up my face, stand at attention, look straight at the person in front of me and take those thoughts captive. I was actually taking thoughts captive! I was like, "Naw, God, this is for You...I can do this through you."

One of the breaking points that I reached was when Major Svtech called me to attention in front of him and told me that 60% of my Company named me as the weakest participant. (Go figure; during Corporate I struggled with 2 miles :P) He asked me if I was used to being that and I said, "Sir yes sir." (btw the only acceptable responses that you could say was, "Sir yes sir" "Sir no sir" Sir I don't understand sir" or "Sir no excuse sir" unless you were given permission to speak freely) He asked me why I wanted to do ESOAL. I said because I wanted to get past the limitations I put on myself. To that he said, "So it's all about you then?" And I said, "Sir no sir." And he said, "So do you care about your company?" And me being the smart one that I am accidentally said, "Sir no sir." So I had to stand in front of everyone and say in the microphone that I didn't care about my company. Then I had to go to every single person and look at them square in the face and eyes and say, "I don't care about you." That broke me. Because in all honesty, I really did care about them but I think God was opening up my eyes to set the pace to say, "Hey this is not all about you. Lean on them yes, but let them lean on you too." That set the pace for me. Oh, and then I had to stand in the back and listen to them chant, "118 (that was my number and you couldn't say any number higher then 10 so it was 1-1-8) please care about me." over and over and over. It was breaking. Though I had one of my brothers, who was our second lieutenant, stand behind me and say, "I believe you care about me" over and over again and that touched me.


You might read that up there and think, man that's cruel, but naw, not really. Not when you think of the world and what it's going to do to you. I'd rather be emotionally broken time and time again then not be ready for what the world may throw at me.

It taught me how to overcome pain and still keep going. One afternoon we had to go out on a trail in the back forty and lay down on it feet to helmet on either side of the road while it was raining. I eventually fell asleep but woke up in excruciating pain. My right let was cramping up really bad because it was shivering. I couldn't walk on it and people had to hold me to go down. Then that night we got some sleep in our sleeping bags in the rain again, but this time I woke up screaming. My leg was in INTENSE pain and I couldn't move it. Hannah, a friend, and another facilitator came around to help me. They helped me up but I couldn't move it at all. It was around 4:30 in the morning (which was cool because later on my mom told me that that night she woke up at about 3:30 and started praying for me on her knees) Praise God! :) and they were starting the fires because we were getting ready to do "Sleep, no sleep" fun. :) That's where you wake up, run to the ice baths, get in for 20 seconds, get out, wait with your platoon, then run to the fire, circle around it, then jump into your sleeping bag and sleep for 15 minutes. Then they wake you up and you have to do it all over again. It was great fun, let me tell you. :D



But all that being said, it taught me to look pain square in the face and say, "No, you are not going to defeat me. I will not ring out and I will not quit. I will see this valley through. I am not going to quit going up this mountain. My God is so much bigger than that." Even after ESOAL I would experience little things that were discouraging and I would stop myself and be like, "Hey, how am I going to respond to this? I mean, I got through ESOAL for goodness sake! Can I not persevere through more?" I'm learning that there is great power in your mindset. 80% of everything you do is from the mind. So if you go into things with the wrong mindset, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Life is like this giant mountain. As we go through life we have to climb. And there are times when it just feels like a breeze and the altitude isn't getting to us in the least bit and it almost feels like a nice stroll. But then there are times when it gets really hard. You begin to grow fatigued and you realize that you hadn't trained well enough or maybe you hadn't stretched enough before starting. Or you lost that stick that you had been using as a crutch and now you are on your own. And it gets hard. But the question is are you going to persevere and keep climbing or are you going to quit or camp? There was a message on this before. But it's becoming more real to me now. There are quitters who just give up. They face some bad things and then they just give up on the mountain, believing they can never do it. Then there are people who are campers, and most of the time the campers don't even realize they are camping. I was like that. They grow complacent. They get used to where they are. They grow used to their Christian walk and don't feel they need to grow more or climb more. Or the climb starts to become more uncomfortable so they say, "Ok, that's enough, break time." Then they build camp. And then there are the Climbers. They, through anything life throws at them, no matter the altitude or steepness of the climb, continue to persevere. They continue to trust in God and lean on Him through it. They take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. They push past the rain and the wind and even when they hurt so bad they scream, they don't give up. I'm learning to be a climber. I can't say I react as a climber in every situation, but I'm learning to be one.



We don't always have to go up the mountain alone either. ESOAL taught me how to lean on other people and how to encourage other people more. I had to learn how to humble myself enough to let people help me. When I got here I had a pride issue. I didn't even realize it at first. But it was there on the inside, when people would not understand where I came from and the fact that I had so much "wisdom" inside of me. I'm quiet at first, and because God is working in me with the confidence factor I sometimes come off as a "weak" Christian. It bothered me that I could possibly come off like that so that is where my pride lay. During corporate exercise I really was the weak one. This area of my life has always been a weakness. It bothered me when certain people would try to encourage me to go faster or keep going. A pride issue. I would have thoughts like, "Man, if they knew...I hate that people are encouraging me because I'm weak. I don't want them to think of me as the weak one." But God has been teaching me that I do need people to encourage me. We all have areas where we are strong and areas where we need work. Everyone was so surprised at me when I finished, and even throughout the whole experience. I know all of them thought I would quit. They told me that I had inner strength that they didn't know I had. All for God's Glory by the way! But it taught me something. It taught me that we all have areas of weakness and areas of strength. That's why we are there to strengthen each other in our weaknesses.

I had been thinking for the longest time that my physical weakness is just something that I would always have. But through this God was teaching me that every area can be strong. Yes, it may take some time, but every area of my life can be strong. His power is made perfect in our weakness. We don't have to live with that weakness. No, I may never be a runner in thousands of marathons and no I may never run to compete, but to say that it will always be a weakness and to live like it just is and there is nothing I can do about it, is crazy. I'm learning that we tend to live like God gave us these weaknesses, or that God gave us these diseases or sickness. But God is not a God of disease or weakness or sickness. So of course He wants to be made perfect in our weaknesses! So start living in the victory that WILL come! :)

God is continuing His work in me. He will never start a work in us that He won't see until completion. So I keep having a heart ready to be molded and refined. I am just amazed at all I am being taught as I'm in this moment of preparation. I always joked that my life was one big time of waiting and preparation and possibly it was. But what if I were to die next week? Would I die thinking I was still in preparation? So I'm learning to live for now. He is teaching me confidence. I want to walk in confidence. I want to walk with purpose and love for others. I don't want to live and walk in fear of what others think of me or what's coming next. But I want to just be a joy to be around to everyone and obedient when God is telling me to do something.

Thank you all who have been praying for me. I have felt the prayers more times then you know! I'm sorry I've been so bad at updating, but life is so crazy here, I scarcely have time for myself! But it's so good, so so gooood! I'm currently trying to figure out how to go about doing fundraisers here. You can't do fundraisers 90 miles from the campus, it has to be more, so we don't bother the locals too much. So I have to figure out how to do it. But you can give plasma two times a week and you can end up making $60 a week so I have to figure out who is going to that.

Please just keep every one's financial situations in your prayers. Some Januarys had to go and take fundraising trips, which means that they are pretty close to having to go home if they don't raise their money. But God is faithful and He provides. Thank you all so much for everything! I love you all! :)