Working at a camp is one of the best and worst experiences in life. Or, at least in my life so far.First of all, I love camp! It's so much fun playing games and being absolutely goofy and screaming at the top of my lungs. I love my fellow counselors and I love my campers! I'm getting to play games, teach, and tell kids all about God's love all at the same time, and I'm getting paid!! Sometimes it almost seems wrong to be paid to have such an awesome experience.
At the same time, camp is one of the most difficult and heart-breaking experiences of my life. I spend a week getting to know my girls and learning to love them for who God created them to be but as that happens, the girls open up and share about their lives... sometimes on purpose, sometimes more subtly. These poor girls have gone through insanely painful, horrible things and have to live life just like any other child.
What breaks my heart the most though is that I've been experiencing a little piece of God's love for us. I got to speak with the girls all week about God's love and how incredible it is to have a relationship with Him. It was awesome and some of the girls now know Jesus as their Savior but at the same time, some of the girls couldn't accept God's love in light of the pain they'd experienced. I felt like a mother with a sick child who refused to take medicine. I know that only God can heal wounds that deep but the girls saw God as the culprit. It was so difficult to see them resist the only solution to their heartache. I found myself wishing that I could take their pain for them and let them have a relationship with God in my place. I guess that's a bit of what Jesus felt when he came to die for us. He saw us in our pitiful state, blinded by our pain, and He came to take that pain away.
Thank you God, for teaching me in this way. Let the girls know how much you love them and teach them to turn to you in the midst of their pain. Thank you for your immeasurable love!
When a trip to the beach meant covering every inch of your body with sand?
It didn't matter that it was messy, it was just fun!
Well, I went to the beach a few days ago with my nieces and spent the first few minutes acting like an adult and trying to keep just my feet in the sand. Then I saw this:
and then I remembered how it felt to be little. When I did not care about about being messy or getting sand stuck on me and being uncomfortable. Then a little voiced asked me to play in the sand with her. I said yes.
