Lies

Our theme for the week here on Juneau Women's Summer Project has been about the lies we believe and the Truth that can overcome them.

Yesterday they made a big point of it to us when they took us all to a mountain and told us to draw in our journals three columns: one for the lies we believe, the second for the sin in our lives that results from believing those lies, and the third to leave blank for the time being. Then we picked up rocks (almost fist-sized), one for each lie we had written down, and put them in our backpacks. I had ten.

We then had to get in a single file line at the start of the path up the mountain and hold hands. A third of us were blind-folded, a third of us were muted, and a third of us were "normal." I started out blind-folded, and even though the climb was pretty easy, I still relied a lot on the person in front of me to make it up. Having been blind-folded a lot through camp and other sorts of team-building activities in various organizations, it was also fairly easy to trust.

The hard part was that our leaders walked next to us and, in low voices, told us lies similar to the ones a lot of us had probably written in our journals. "You can't make it up this mountain. No one would notice if you weren't here. You aren't enough of a woman without a man. Something's wrong with you which is why you don't have a job yet." Meanwhile, one of our leaders was the truth-teller, and she walked beside us saying things like, "You are a beloved child of God. You shine with his light." I guess it was up to us who to listen to.

We stopped and took of our blind-folds and one of the leaders talked about one of her lies that she struggled against, then read some passages from the Bible that renounced that lie. From where we were, we could see a mountain with huge chunks of ice on it and a waterfall running down it. Below, we could see a river. It was awing. Then we got back in line, held hands again, and rotated our infirmities.

This happened multiple times, until all the leaders had shared their lies and parallel truths, and we had all been blind-folded, muted, or "normal" at some point. When we finally stopped, we were next to a huge roaring waterfall. We were instructed to write truths for each lie in the third column in our journal, and throw a rock into the waterfall for each one, until all our rocks were gone.

It was pouring rain by this point (it had been raining the whole time), so it was really hard to write in my already-soaked journal, but I felt pretty determined to denounce some of the lies I believed with Christ's Truth, so I wrote anyway.

A lot of them are pretty personal, but I'll share a few that I'm okay with sharing:

Lie: What I have to say is not intelligent enough
Sin: Listening only
Truth: What God gives me to say is enough.

Lie: I don't need God on a daily basis
Sin: Neglecting him, relying on myself
Truth: God is the only thing I need.

Lie: I am alone
Sin: self-pity, despair
Truth: I always have God.

Although this was not necessarily ground-breaking for me, it was an excellent eye-opener. That is to say, I am aware of what is a lie in my life, and what is true. But I needed to be reminded of it, because the spiritual battle against the Devil's lies is a constant one that I need to remember to fight. He can whisper to us without us even noticing, and it is incredibly damaging. We find ourselves believing lies that we know are lies, but they have snuck up on us and we have forgotten to cut them down with the Truth. So I needed it.

We were encouraged, when we were done writing, to find one or two other people and talk to them a little bit about what some of our lies had been, and pray for each other. I saw Lauren, who looked quite miserable because she was sick, soaking wet, and freezing, so we put our arms around each other for warmth and talked, standing close in the rain, staring at our feet, and sharing our hearts with one another, then praying for each other. As physically uncomfortable as we were, it was incredibly worth it.

We walked back down normally, and I got to chat with Emily, who was with us but is only in town for the week, so it was good to meet someone new.

When we got down to the bottom of the mountain, it was 10:00 p.m. and still light out, even with the rainclouds. One nice thing about Juneau is that it literally never storms here; no thunder or lightning, ever. Something about the atmospheric pressure, I guess (clearly I'm not a meteorologist). So even though we were surrounded by huge evergreens on a mountainside in the pouring rain, we were still pretty safe.

Soaked, we all went to the Breeze-In (a little convenience store) and got snacks, talking and giggling. I guess you could call the whole evening a "bonding experience."

The only truly negative thing about last night was that my journal and Bible both got water damage on the pages. The experience was so uplifting, though, that, like I said, it was worth it.

Tonight we are going to have an hour each to share our life stories with our Action groups (the people we live with in our apartments.) Please pray that that goes well for all of us.

Thanks for your support and prayers. I'm missing my home state, but not ready to go back yet! The thing that blows my mind is how far away it is. I feel like I could still take a day trip to my college town, but I can't. Weird! Familiarity makes things seem nearby. Maybe by August, I will find it hard to believe that I can't see my Project friends at any old time, as we disperse back across the "lower-48."



God bless.