10:30 in my tent the first night of training camp, I wrote in my journal “I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not sad or nervous...maybe a little...just uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable... It's so hot. I think there is a bug in my tent...maybe that's it”  Really poetic, but honestly, it sums up training camp... Uncomfortable.

When people ask me what training camp was like, I tell them it was a mixture of summer camp, a church conference, and boot camp. You get the bonding of summer camp combined with hours of teachings on top of fitness requirements, bucket showers and eating crickets. Really strange. It was something I truly have never experienced before and often left me asking myself what I was doing and how I got here multiple times a day.

So, like I said, uncomfortable. I knew I was leaving my comfort zone. I expected it and accepted it with open arms, but when it finally met up with me, I didn't embrace it right away because I was ashamed. I thought it was my fault, that the reason I was uncomfortable was because of my shortcomings as a person. I went through my head and tried to reason why I was feeling this way. Was it because I wasn't spiritual enough? Was it because I was too ugly? too weird? Was it because I told people that my favorite dance is the nae nae within the first hour of meeting them??  The enemy ran lies through my head to distract me from the truth. The truth is that I wasn't the only one uncomfortable. If you read any blogs about training camp, I guarantee that most of the blogs will mention training camp as hard and uncomfortable. This isn't because AIM is bad at planning training camps, or because it was so hot. The reason training camp is so uncomfortable is because the Holy Spirit is there, and he is loud, and he is tangible, and he is uncomfortable. The Holy Spirit found me in my discomfort and used that as a foothold to usher me into the season of growth that is the next 10 months of my life. Growth is hard, and it hurts, but in it, I found incredible joy. Joy because God revealed to me what was holding me back from running towards him at full speed. He revealed what I needed to surrender to him in order to look more like Jesus. He also revealed himself, as a God of kindness and of grace. A God that loves me a way that nobody else ever will. A God that witnesses my worst acts, yet forgives me and looks upon me with the same steadfast love. A God that I don't deserve, yet through Jesus, I have a relationship with.  

The Holy Spirit showed up in my discomfort and flipped it so that I would find comfort in my creator. When the Holy Spirit shows up, it's uncomfortable and full of tears, but God is greater than our emotions. He breaks our hearts just to put them together better than they were before. He turns our discomfort into strength. The World Race will be really uncomfortable, but with a God that can harness discomfort and turn it into growth and strength, I can do anything.