Meet Kimberly Parker, former World Racer and founder of Worthy Daughters, a community designed to empower women to believe and live in their identity as daughters of the most high King. She said 'so long' to her comfort zone, spent eleven months traveling the world, and now has what she calls a ‘painfully thankful perspective’ on life.
You left home to share Jesus and serve around the world for eleven months. You had never pitched a tent or been camping. You had never been on an international mission trip. And yet, you said yes anyway. What fears or hesitations did you have when making this decision, and what helped you persevere through them?
Money was the first factor that held me back. This was a very expensive journey, one I could not nearly afford. Fundraising was next. Although I knew there was no way $17,000 would just fall into my lap without doing some leg work, my pride hated asking for help, especially for money. I didn't even know where to start. It seemed impossible. Last was comparison. I definitely wasn't what I thought it took to be "cut out" for the World Race. I looked at their website and everyone seemed like outdoorsy super Christians - which I was neither. I was a Christian that talked about Christ but I didn't know how to share the Gospel. I didn't know how to worship with my whole heart. I didn't know how to lead a bible study - what if they asked me questions I didn't know the answer to? All of these thoughts separated me from them.
BUT GOD, am I right?
He sent me people - incredible, wise, supportive, generous, selfless - to walk the journey with me. He sent every. single. penny. AND MORE. and you know what else? When I finally made it to training camp, I met a bunch people just like me - Christians that had pasts and weren't perfect but that loved God all the more for it.
Once I saw the way God moved in the preparation for my journey, I knew He would take care of me every step of the way on it.
What is one moment from your race that you feel has forever made a difference in your life?
I can't narrow it down to just one moment. It was more of a compilation of incomprehensible, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, moments.
The poverty. The need. The contentment. The simplicity. That's what turned my life upside down.
I remember the first day we went to visit one of the villages in Haiti. I held naked babies so sick I thought they might die right in my arms. Their parents had no money for medical attention. School aged children walked barefoot with us from house to house until we were traveling in a crowd. Not only could their parents not afford to send them to school, but not even to put shoes on their blistering feet. When we went into the school to eat lunch that day, I had to step into the corner to bury my uncontrollable heaves while crying. I couldn't bear it. I'll never forget riding the bus out of that village, staring out the window, and asking God why He chose them to have this life instead of me.
I can't tell you how many similar moments succeeded that one: building friendships with prostitutes in Thailand who told me they didn't like their job then having them taken from our conversation by a paying customer, or finding out an 8 year old boy that had been visiting our ministry in Mozambique for food and soccer all month, had been living alone in his empty house after both parents died, or seeing people kill and eat their horses in Lesotho because their need to feed their families surpassed their need for transportation.
The year was a plethora of moments that engraved a painfully thankful perspective into my heart.
Someone can’t see what you saw and spend eleven months of their life serving others and not be changed. What are some of the biggest changes in your life since returning home, and what challenges have you faced in doing so? That transition has to be tough.
Beth Moore says "the Holy Spirit will systematically go about hammering one nail after another into your self-destructive, self-obsessed, self-loathing, self-adoring flesh. You will try like mad, when that thing starts to die, to give it CPR, until you realize the "old you" is KILLING YOU, and the sooner it's stone cold dead in the grave, the better." Nothing describes my year on the World Race better than this. God used one year of my life to deliberate, deroot, and destroy strongholds that I spent 23 years living under. Once the weeds had been pulled, He had room to plant things like wisdom, intimacy, trust, and humility. I learned how to pray and expect healing, how to worship with my whole heart, how to listen in prayer, how to dig into the Word, and how to discern the voice of God.
Returning home was a difficult transition. After the excitement of the holidays and joys of American comforts dwindled, the more apparent became the negatives of first world living. The church seemed indifferent, uninspired. The people seemed unengaged. I remember constantly being infuriated that I couldn't sit in a room with someone without them being on their phone. Where was the intentionality? I deeply longed to be with the community I had spent the last year cultivating. I wanted to outcry in worship together, serve in ministry together, share struggles and pray over one another, and encourage and sharpen each other daily. Anything else did not suffice for me.
I came off the field guns blazing, but ran out of ammo quickly. I was so focused on the future, I couldn't live in the present. After hopping countries every month for a year, being still wasn't something I did well, but that's exactly what God called me to. I moved back home and made attempts to get plugged in, but with every disappointment grew my urgency to leave. More than anything I wanted to move to a new city, or a foreign country, to be a missionary, or work at a job that inspires people, to do "something that mattered." The World Race taught me how to dream big, and that my biggest dreams were achievable. But if I'm honest, how I felt was that a year after my return, I'm a 24 year old part-time nanny that still lives at home. That was a hard thing about re-entry: dealing with timing and expectations - people's and my own.
What I had to learn is that the world may expect me to go back on the mission field, or go back to school, or get a "real job," or get married and start having children, but this is my current mission field and I am exactly where God wants me to be. That is finally enough for me. I believe sometimes we're all so ready to "get there," wherever there is, that we miss out on the here and now. We're itching to jump into ministry that we forget Jesus was a carpenter for 30 years before His three years of ministry. Are we to say those years didn't matter?
Once I finally relinquished control to God and His timing, I found contentment. I also found new ways of investing in people: in my family, in my job, and in my community. My life isn't perfect. I still have a million promises I'm waiting to see fulfilled. I don't have it all figured out, but I'm happy, because I know I can trust in Someone that does.
One of the best things I've heard since being back has been that "it's not about what we do; it's about who we are." I don't need a relationship, a title, a ministry resume, or a successful career to be a worthy daughter of the King of the universe.
Your world race adventure may be over, but you’re starting a new adventure and are using your voice to empower women to find their identity as worthy daughters. What led you to start this movement, and if you could tell women just one thing in regards to their identity, what would you say?
The term "worthy daughter" was coined at my World Race training camp in conjunction with a fellow squadmate. See the thing is, I spent the majority of my life believing the lie that Satan planted that I was unworthy to be loved. Lies told me that if people knew the real me, what had happened to me, or the mistakes I had made, that no one would love me - especially not God. So for years I took on the responsibility, that I believe most Christians do, of perfection. If I couldn't be it, I'd at least pretend I was.
That is, until I got to training camp and met those other imperfect Christians I talked about. The night that changed everything our squad had a bonfire. I can only describe it as the most spontaneous spirit-filled worship that I had experienced to that day. As we all stood around the fire, I felt God tell me that I needed to step out and share that I'd spent my life believing I was unworthy and ask them to pray over me. I was like "are you kidding me? I barely know these people. I am not about to bear my deepest insecurity in front of 40 of them!" But if you've ever had an argument with God, you know it's hard to win. I was trembling, but I did it. Come to find out, I wasn't the only one. A handful of women joined in the circle with me and said they believed the exact same thing but never had the courage to say anything. We all received prayer and affirmation that night. We all took turns screaming up to the sky " I am worthy!"
I found love despite my imperfections. I learned that not only does God see all of me and know all of me, but He also loves all of me. He replaced the chains of unworthiness with the freedom in being His beloved. The Bible tells us we are redeemed by the blood of Christ. He deems us worthy. He calls us children of God. When I learned to walk in the identity of a worthy daughter, my whole life changed.
The Worthy Daughter movement started a couple of months ago as a social media presence, an outlet to share nuggets of truth and encouragement with women all around me. Recently, I have felt inspired to take it a step further in creating a website that I hope to launch in the new year, in hopes of creating a place to share and commune with women who are willing to admit they are broken, thirsting for love and wholeness. I truly believe vulnerability and rawness creates an atmosphere for a beautiful community.
If I could tell every woman everywhere one thing, I'd shout from the rooftops that no matter what they've believed about themselves, no matter what they've done, and no matter what's been done to them, they are irrevocably and incomprehensibly loved. To the prisoners of sin and unforgiveness, I'd tell them I knew the holder of the key to their shackles of shame and disappointment. And to my countless friends whose father dropped the ball, I'd whisper that they are treasured by their Father in Heaven that bears no resemblance to their faulty earthly father.
You really stepped out of your comfort zone when you said yes to commit to serve for almost an entire year. That can’t have always been easy. What advice would you give to someone who feels called to do something but is struggling to say yes?
Last year was the most intense, uncomfortable, stretching, eye-opening, stronghold-breaking, fulfilling, love-overflowing year of my life. My greatest desire is to see people let go of their plan, their comforts, and their fears, and say yes to the call to follow Jesus no matter the cost.
Any advice I'd give to someone considering an opportunity to serve would to be:
pray for the door to be opened/closed - when God doesn't give you what you want He'll give you something better
trust God's timing - be patient and rest in knowing He sees the big picture
when you are afraid, jump - courage is not the absence of fear, but the choice to act despite it.
when you feel unqualified, remember "God doesn't call the equipped He equips the called."
Lastly, once you've made the decision to go, make an unbreakable commitment not to give up when it gets tough. The times that you feel like you have nothing left to give and can't go one more day will teach you how to draw your strength from the Lord. The intense loneliness and homesickness will drive you into beautifully deep intimacy. The hopelessness will soon be wrecked by insurmountable awe of God's sovereignty, grace, and love. In great distress grows great dependence.
Trust me, you won't want to miss this - it's going to be worth it.
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