Last weekend I went to the LIFL intensive and boy was it intense!! Steve shared a story about how trainers have learned to break horses, taking the process from 6 weeks to just 1 or 2 days. The crux of the story is that they have to be incapacitated and shown those things that scare them before they can be broken and ridden. I thought then that it was a neat story, but didn't see how it related to me ...... "you never know."

I learned to let go of my "I have it all together, I'm strong, and I look perfect" image. All weekend I fought the urge to cry in front of others until Saturday night when I had to surrender my arrogance. I completely broke down. Just as I was trying to escape to my room so that I could be alone and beat myself up about how stupid and weak I looked, one of my group members came up to me and asked me if I wanted to talk. "No! No, I don't want to talk," I screamed in my head, but my body flopped down in a chair. I talked and poured my heart out to her and connected with her through that weak moment in a way I have never done before. Later, I did go up to my room, but instead of feeling bad, I actually felt good. I felt cleansed, and I wrote my letter.

Sunday morning when we were given the opportunity to share, I got up in front of everyone and shared my letter as I cried. On my way home, I pulled off the interstate to get a few things. As I waited on the off-ramp for the light to change, a truck stopped next to me that was pulling a horse trailer. When I looked over, the horse inside stuck his nose through the barred window and stared into my eyes. While he looked intently, God spoke to my heart "Now you're broken." As I said last weekend, going through the intensive and then standing on the stage was not my graduation ceremony. I am only in my first semester, but I enter the journey now broken of my fear of rejection because I would look weak in front of others (until I surrender it again tomorrow) and am now free to be used by Christ. Praise God!! Amen!