Victory a midst the feelings of defeat

I think the title to this one says it all although many of you may wonder why. I've been trying to put into words the I-5 tour and what my experience was and well... that about sums it up. We had so many amazing things happen. It was amazing. I saw so many of the people on the team really discover who they were and stand strong in who God has made them to be. However, I found myself shrinking back time and time again. I felt swallowed up in the midst of all the people and the activity. I've always been very sensitive in my own feelings as well as those around. I would do almost anything to stop a potential problem from happening, even if it meant hurting myself or causing people to become angry with me. I am protective of other people more often than I am of myself. While I know this is unhealthy, but I still haven't really learned what to do instead of try to mother bear everyone. It's like I have some strange internal wiring that if I see any potential problem I just go into hyper-protect mode and try to figure out a way to avoid it from happening. It may sound kind of funny as I write about it, but in reality it isn't. It's not my job to fix everyone's problems. It's not my job to protect everyone from every possible hurt, bump, bruise, etc... even though I honestly would like to. I cannot take God's position in people's lives. I cannot save them. I cannot die for them, although if the possibility of that were to arise, I probably would. I'm relearning a lot of things. That's probably the best thing I can sum up.

So, while amazing miracles happened (blind eyes opened, over 100 souls came to know Jesus and his love for them, backs healed from years of pain, dead raised, crooked legs straightened, ministries encouraged, strongholds broken, and sooo much more), I've found that God isn't concerned with that as much as he is about us. He was concerned about me the whole time. He was concerned about my heart. My thoughts. My heart. My everything. He was concerned about me rising into the fullness of who he has made me to be and not only me.... He was concerned with every individual that joined the team and every individual we encountered. He is much better at being a protector than I am. When I tried to sense, feel, know, and protect every single person on the tour, I became exhausted, impatient, frustrated, afraid, and so much more. I couldn't breath. I couldn't think straight. I felt swallowed up. I felt rejected and insecure. All of these things that aren't me... I lost who I was and felt completely defeated. However, we serve a God who does things exceedingly above our expectations! He works all things out for my good. He knows what he is doing... and I can say in the midst of everything that happened, he brought the VICTORY! 

Now, I can take time to really learn better ways to GUIDE people rather than (let's be real) control them. It is never and was never my hearts intention to ever control anyone... I want people to be free... Seriously! I want people to be so free to be themselves that they just can't hide themselves from anyone for any reason. BUT because I haven't dealt with some things in my life and learned tools like boundaries, I have learned to take other people's issues on as my own and in the end tried to control their outcome, when it was never mine to begin with. I am currently taking time to learn these things and heal. I became very responsible at a very young age... it's now time to let go of the responsibility I've put on myself for the whole world (literally at times) and just be responsible for little ole me... VICTORY!