WEEK 2: Camp Praise; Sweet Home, OR

After our long week at Gilead, we arrived at Camp Praise, exhausted and not at all feeling ready for our next group of kids to arrive. We were pleasantly surprised when we pulled into the camp though to find that it was a very homely and simple camp..in a beautiful way. The staff was small, the grounds were small, the games were fun, but simple, and it was beautiful. There is such a beauty to simplicity.
My cabin of jr highers soon arrived, and our 2nd week of camp began..
The week was good. Really good. Like I said, the camp was simple, but it was focused on God. It was focused on loving the Lord and loving these jr highers we were with. We started out our mornings together in a staff meeting focusing our eyes on Jesus and praying together. We went out during the day as 1 team, with a unity and love that only Christ can bring- and we went out and let Jesus love these kids through us. My cabin of girls, for the most part, was a really sweet cabin. I got to have one-on-one time with all of them and find out about their lives, their struggles, and their walks with God. I got to laugh with them, and cry with them. And most exciting of all, I got to sit with one of my little girls, Zoey, as she prayed to tell the Lord that she needed forgiveness and that she believed in him, and that she wanted to see him and hear him and be with him..and that she loved him so much! It was a simple and beautiful prayer.

Darron, the speaker at the camp this week, was blunt, fiery, and real. He said things like they were, and I appreciated that. The whole week he talked about what it meant to be "A person after God's own Heart." He used the life of David as an example because David is the person that God calls a man after his own heart. I learned so much from Darron this week. God really used what Darron was talking about, the way Darron loved the kids, the way Darron talkes about his wife and marriage, and the way Darron lived his life to teach and encourage me. It was really neat hearing Darron talk about his wife, Candy, and hearing him say that she is hot, that she is his best friend, that he is a better person because of her, and that he loves the Lord more because of her. He went on and on about her, about how great it was being married to her, and then he got all choked up because he missed her so much (after only 3 days!). Although this may seem like not a big deal, to me it was. To me it was a huge testimony and example of what a marriage should look like. I have never seen a guy talk so highly and respectfully about his wife and their marriage. It gave me hope.

Darron's talk about being a person after God's own heart really challenged me and made me think. He had 8 main points:

A person after God's own heart:
1. may be unnoticed by most but will always be noticed by the one who matters most
2. cares more about God's honor than his own life
3. maintains a proper perspective of lives problems- has God's peace, power, and presence
4. will always find faithful friends
5.will always honor the perfectly placed authorities in his life
6. will always extend to others what God has extended to them- mercy, forgiveness
7. will always faithfully fight, resist, and run from temptation
8. is always willing, ready, and able to boast about God's bigness and our littleness- the goodness and faithfulness of God

God taught me so much through these different points about what it means to be a person after God's heart. He challenged me to look at my friends and decide if they were pulling me towards Christ, or away. He challenged me to be quick to boast about God and his faithfulness in my life. He challenged me to long to be noticed by God, instead of people. He challenged me to care more about God's honor, than what people think of me.

At the beginning of this week I talked with God and asked him to help me have a heart that was present. I realized how long I have lived just trying to get through the day, just dragging through waiting for the next day, waiting for my next breathe of fresh air. I don't fully invest my heart and mind into every moment...and I need to. I was not making the most of every moment, and I need to and want to, to honor God. So that was my prayer as I went into this week to have a heart that was fully there and that loved my girls and invested in my girls- and I felt like God granted me that...and it was wonderful! It was draining, and hard at times..but it was good. And I am so thankful!

God has been so faithful to me. Faithful in bringing me encouragement. Faithful in giving me strength when I have none. Faithful in giving me words when I have none. He has been faithful in working in and through this mess of a person that I am, and using me to bring honor to Him.