So, that was camp

For you are great and do wondrous things;
you alone are God.
Teach me your way, O LORD,
that I may walk in your truth.

The Lord truly did great and wondrous things at camp. And most of them revolved around revealing His truth to the girls I was with. It was really beautiful.

The week I counseled high school girls, one of the speakers shared about "toxic faith," or lies that we believe as truth. It fascinated me that this very thing is what the Lord has been trying to teach me this past year, and it was so good to see the Lord open my girls' eyes and show them the very things He has been proving to me - that they are beautiful, cherished, and loved. We had lots of good talks complete with tears and thank-you prayers. The Lord also gave me the opportunity to teach the girls afternoon Bible study for the week! I got to share on Thursday and Friday, and just shared about Hannah and Leah, two of my current favorite Bible women, and all that the Lord did for them and in them. It was really cool. I am always so thankful for any chance to teach, since it's kind of in my blood, but this time I was just really humbled by the fact that the Lord opened the door for me. It was so kind of Him. A girl in my cabin trusted Christ, too, after years of pretending to be a believer. And I got to spend time with one of my favorite boys in the world, who trusted Christ when he was 13, a few years ago, and is doing really well spiritually. He has the hardest life of almost anyone I know, but he is pressing on to know the Lord and it's so cool to see.

The second week was quite a stretching one. I was speaking at KBC for the girls grade school week. I had never been the only speaker at the week of camp, for morning and evening messages, and I must confess, that was pretty hard. Coming straight from school to working at the cemetery and then straight to camp two weeks after school, I definitely didn't feel as prepared as I would have like to have been, but that's okay, because the Lord had important things to teach me about dependence on Him and not on my own ability. Frankly, after I teach (anything, English, writing, Bible) I can generally feel like, "Yep, that went pretty well." But this week I didn't feel that way very much at all. One of my close friends who was counseling said that sometimes she did find it hard to follow the messages, even. That was pretty humbling. But the Lord used them - and even to teach the girls what I felt the Lord wanted as my objective. One girls said she learned more about Jesus' sacrifice for us, another about God's great love, another about the fact that she herself was special and loved, and one told me, after an especially difficult message, "Ms. Liz, that message was for me." So, the Lord was reminding me that it is His work and He only calls me to obey.

I was reminded one evening that it's actually kind of silly that when we have a hard week we talk about dependence on the Lord, when in reality we have to live every day depending on Him. It's true. But He does use those hard days to remind us, oh so vividly, that we have to trust Him for everything.

Thank you for praying. God did prove Himself strong and victorious through the two weeks of camp, and I'm thankful. It's back to work now. I'm not sure I'm ready to face the rest of the summer on a lawn mower, but it's again that daily dependence on my Lord. He will carry me through. :)