"But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state. Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.“Ask the former generation and find out what their ancestors learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow. Will they not instruct you and tell you? Will they not bring forth words from their understanding?
Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh? Can reeds thrive without water? While still growing and uncut, they wither more quickly than grass. Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web. They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold. They are like a well-watered plant in the sunshine, spreading its shoots over the garden; it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks and looks for a place among the stones." Job 8:5-17
I have blogged earlier about my experience at camp over the summer, but I've come to realize something about it that I did not realize before. Camp had a much much huger impact on my life than I thought possible. My biggest camp rant blog is no longer posted but I can sum it up for you really quick: Camp was really really difficult for me. The hardest, darkest, summer of my life.
But!! Very recently I came to realize a very beautiful thing. God has been growing a garden!
You see, for some strange, odd, crazy reason, I started to apply to work at the same camp again for next summer. I surprised myself by it quite a bit. I'm not sure that I will go through with it and fully apply or anything... idk if that's really my heart's desire. But, one of the questions on the application was "How has God worked in your life over the past 6 months?" Well, let's see, 6 months ago was April so from April to October.. that puts camp right in the middle. I started answering that question in an email and had to start a Microsoft Word document because of all the paragraphs that had to go into answering that question. For real... God has done some crazy big things as a result. He's also done some sneaky, subtle things as well, beautiful things.
"What are these things?" You may be asking. Well, for starters, God taught me a huge big thing on how to be friends with girls. That probably sounds a little silly but, I grew up hanging out with my brothers. Climbing trees, building forts, shooting BB guns, starting fires, digging worms, playing in mud puddles... that kind of fun thing. My friends that are girls are not particularly girly or dramatic..and most of my friends are guys anyways. When staff training for camp started, I didn't know any of the other staff members. Just one of the program directors cuz she is a friend from school. It is my natural tendency to be better friends with the guys and not girls but I decided early on at camp that I probably should do that while at camp as that would be distracting to the campers and not a wise investment of my time as I have a boyfriend and forming any deep friendship bonds with other guys is just not a good idea.
So thus started the first bits of seed plantings in God's garden of me. I learned very quickly some things about girls that I did not expect or know originally. (You'd think that as a girl I would have had a heads up on these things.. but I really didn't have a clue).
The first thing I learned about girls is that they like to talk about boys ALL the time. Cute boys, nice boys, the staff boys, any boys. They compare which staff guys are the cutest, which ones seem to know the Bible best, which ones are treating the girls nicely...... OH my goodness. If *that* is not enough to make one go insane.. I also soon found out that girls cry a TON.
Ok, ok.. yes, I myself cried every day for the first 3 weeks of my being there which is an excessive amount of crying for anybody and probably the most I've cried ever. But I had good reasons for my tears and I never cried a single one of them in front of anybody. I always took them out to the middle of a field and watered the grass a little. But! Other girls, I found out, cry for any and every reason under the sun and they cry in front of people and on people and with people and it honestly amazed me. I am much like a guy when it comes to crying. Not completely, but somewhat. I do my best to do most of my crying away from people. If I see someone crying, my reaction is to walk away and let them cry by themselves as I know that it is what I would want. But! At camp I observed that when one girl would cry, another girl would rub her back and ask what was wrong and listen to her talk about her feelings offer advise and tell her it was gonna be ok and somehow that seemed to work. The first time I witnessed this I was rather amazed at the power of a back rub and the fluffy words of comfort. I got to observe it a couple of times as I roomed with 8 young women during the training weeks with 7 or 8 more girls just across the way. All my observing paid off and I learned how to do that whole comfort girls thing too! A skill that has proved itself to be most useful..especially during high school week where all 10 of my girls cried at different points through out the week and occasionally more than once. I've also got to use it sense the ending of camp. I'm truly amazed. It's still out of my comfort zone, but if God were ever to call me overseas to missions (He mostly will.. or is) my ministry would most likely be women. After all, there are not many cultures where it is acceptable for a woman to be all buddy buddy with the men. So, I'm rather proud of that skill I acquired.
Another thing that God was planting in my garden was a couple of friendship flowers. They were slow to sprout, slow to grow, but they are growing and they are beautiful. One being with one of the young high schooler jr. counselors. A very enthusiastic young lady who reminds me a bit of myself from a point in my life. She has a beautiful heart for Jesus that I am blessed to see take off in different ways.
The other flower being that of my friendship with Jessica. My friend that asked me to work at camp originally. We didn't see much of each other over the summer, but we both saw each other going through a difficult summer and so we encouraged each other along the way. And our friendship has grown a ton since camp. It is beautiful and she is wonderful.
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