Hey blog reading people! As you say to the acquaintance you run into at the grocery store and don’t actually want to talk to, it’s been a while. No, I didn’t just get sick of writing my feelings down for the world to see, I was in a tiny town in Texas at an Australian themed Christian camp hanging out with crazy middle schoolers.
And wow, what a three months it was.
But I’m not going to give you a 30 minute, 3 point sermon about how camp is the greatest and I learned so much and you should all do it and it was the best summer of my life. Because that wouldn’t be true.
This summer was maybe one of the hardest of my life. I woke up so many mornings wanting to be anywhere else and spent a lot of days wishing I was curled up in my bed with my favorite coffee mug.
Naturally, I wrote a lot of this into words, words I would like to share with you today. My idea for this post is to show you my story through snippets of my own journal entries, my own in the moment raw words and emotions. So come with me friend, and let me tell you about my summer at camp.
Saturday, May 11
Yikes, I leave for camp tomorrow and I am a wreck. I’m afraid and I’m running from new and change and hard, just like I always am.
Monday, May 13
(this is an emo one sorry y’all)
I don’t really want to be here. I don’t want to sleep in a bunk bed for 13 more weeks. I don’t want to be cut off from my friends and family and Wes for 13 weeks. I know this is not about me but this is how I feel. I feel like I could cry for a week.
Sunday, May 26 – Opening Day!
I want John 10:10 to be my praise and anthem. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
“I’m in the growing now. And it’s time to get comfortable here.”
Sunday, June 2
God, I want to want you and your way, but there is so much in my heart that wants to do it my own way, wants to run and hide. I don’t know what else to do, I’m weak and tired.
I pray for joy despite the circumstance. I pray for joy despite the circumstance. I pray for joy despite the circumstance.
Saturday, June 15
I am starting to fall back in love with this place and with living out of a bunk bed and spending long, hot days with 12-year-olds. This is where I am, and I pray I simply rejoice and rest in The Lord today.
Thursday, June 20
I’d be lying if I said there weren’t parts of me that want to go home with the rest of 1st half in eight days. Yet you want me to be here, yet you ask for me to stay…I don’t have to do anything but the day in front of me today. I pray I would stop seeing camp as a list of to-do’s and a countdown. Because nothing can satisfy me the way Jesus can right now.
“Yet you want me here, yet you ask for me to stay”
Friday, June 21
Take me, drag me, to the rock that is higher than I.
Sunday, June 23
It’s wild to think this time last summer I was about to get my first cabin in sweet CG1. My heart is in such a different place than it was then, but also a very similar one. I feel not ready to get a cabin in 7 days. But I know I will never be fully ready or capable on my strength and abilities alone.
Monday, July 1
It’s July, and I have a cabin. It’s all wild.
Saturday, July 6
I’m seeing how much of my heart is controlled by my emotions. I doubt that God is bigger than my emotions, like I literally don’t believe God can break through the walls of my heart…I spend the week telling my campers God is more satisfying than anything the world has to offer, yet I don’t believe this myself.
(Smack, I’ll say it louder for the people in the back: We should love GOD more than THE STUFF HE GIVES US!!!!)
Wednesday, July 10
Tonight my campers said, “Do you miss your boyfriend Wes because tonight is WEStern night?”
Friday, July 12
The prayers of Colossians 1:9-14:
- knowledge
- all spiritual wisdom and understanding
- bearing fruit
- being strengthened in all power
- “all endurance and patience with joy”
- giving thanks
Wow, God is cool. The fact that Anna Claire wrote me a letter almost 2 months ago with these verses of encouragment and I didn’t look it up until this morning at precisely the moment I needed to hear those encouraging words most is such a beautiful picture of God’s provision.
Saturday, July 13
This morning I will stop and sit and praise you for what you walked me through this week. You broke me down until I had nothing left, but you are showing me broken and hurting in your hands is a good place to be because it lets me see the incredible power You have to break through it all. You truly gave me joy bigger than my emotions.
lol, and there’s actually a small, dim, in the very distance light (yikes I know this doesn’t make grammatical sense but it’s what I wrote ok) at the end of the tunnel. For now, though, I’m good right where I’m at.
Wednesday, July 17
I see growth happening. I see myself being content right where I’m at. One girl asked how John could write these things when he was exiled to an island, and I got to share with her the unshakable joy we are shown and called to live out in Philippians. This cabin is so calm, yet they bring so much joy out of me, joy I didn’t know I had, joy that comes only from the Father.
Saturday, July 20
This week I wanted to be here. This cabin made me smile, they brought me peace. They didn’t need last summer Pinki, off the walls with energy. That’s probably what blows my mind the most and also brings me straight to the feet of Jesus, just the fact that God gave both me and these campers exactly what we needed!!
Thursday, July 25 – Christmas in July!!
It’s cool to read old entries from the summer and see how far I’ve come, and how far my heart has come.
Saturday, August 3
This week reminded me this summer was never in my control to begin with.
Monday, August 5
Wow, I’ve really been waiting 10 weeks for quiet times in the boom on work crew. And this week will look different. I truly have no idea what today holds. I went from cringing at the thought of nannying to volunteering up myself. Which is weird but it happened and I’m here.
(later on Monday)
I’m exhausted but I had a lot of fun today. Kids are more fun than I thought they were.
Thursday, August 8
This is my last full day of camp. That’s insane. I’ve truly lived so much life here, and I feel like a completely different person I’ve spent a lot of this week just taking it in. Just feeling life, feeling camp things like lunch program that feel so ordinary and routine, feeling the things I have experienced this summer.
I read 1 Kings 14 this morn and it’s really sad. Jeroboam and all his family are killed by God because they did not obey him. Looking at this story up close, it doesn’t make sense why God would do such a terrible thing. That’s how this summer felt when I looked too closely too. I know it’s not a great analogy given the different circumstances, but it reminds me God’s presence is intricately intertwined in the events of our lives.
God brought me to this place to teach me things about himself & myself that I couldn’t have learned anywhere else.
He moved in and through campers all summer long, even when my heart was hard and apathetic and not in it. And the wild thing is, this was all in His plan and according to His will!
Friday, August 9
(my last day of camp, and the last journal entry I’ll make you read because it sums it up well.)
This summer has been good, I think I can say that with confidence. But also it has been some of the hardest weeks and moments of my life mentally and emotionally. I have learned to fight for joy and peace and contentment. I pray these are heart conditions I also fight for at home, because the Christian life should not be one of complacency and comfort.
Well if you’re still with me after all of that, hey!
I wanted to do that so you, and me as I was able to reflect on this summer through writing this, could see the journey behind the results and lessons learned. To all of the people asking, “how was your summer?”, I hope this answers your question. Pinki out.