Saturday, June 29, 2013

i don't love summer camp.

and that's okay. its okay that it is hard. it's okay that i'm tired. because summer camp works. crossroads works. i think for the past year since i saw camp last summer i questioned if it worked. i questioned why there were so much emphasis on the staffers and not emphasis on the youth pastors. i questioned if discipleship ever happened. i questioned if decisions to follow christ were ever followed up on. all my questions and fears were denied this week. it works. lives really are changed. my life is changed because of crossroads. i didn't meet the Lord at crossroads summer camp but my life is still different because of crossroads summer camp. i will be a different person after these next 4 weeks.

i lost my voice the first day of camp. i couldn't talk at all and i was sick. i felt like i was never going to get it back or be able to talk to campers or relate at all. the first dinner we had monday night i sat down with two girls brooke and adriana who were both 12. we talked, i asked a lot of questions, we laughed and they understood EVERYTHING i asked them. not once did i have to repeat myself. and i was sick! that night they both decided to follow christ and i got to advise them with my friend kelly. we talked about the lord and we got to pray over them. again, they understood everything. camp works. miracles work. i don't know how my voice came back the moment i needed it to at advising but seriously. praise the lord. all week i had conversations with girls who were patient and fun and it was good. i told jess i'd be okay if camp was over because i really like my life outside of camp but i also get to see miracles happen the next 4 weeks. and i can do it. i can do anything for four weeks. camp works. little girls facebook and instagram stalk like it's their job and for some reason they loved me and received my love enough to want to still be friends with me after this week. i hope they also took home and received the love of Christ moreso than mine.

so, i think it's okay that i am not in love with summer camp. i'm also not on summer break and this is just a fun summer job. this town and these people are my life and my real life goes on...i sent out 50 support letters this week for brazil. i went to presley's bachlorette party, i snuck in some time with sarah thomas. life goes on in this little town i live in, i just have to make the time for it to not pass me by.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

life has been full of good stories lately.


  • ashley let me save a turtle from the side of the road. his name was tobias and he swam around our pool with a frog on his back. then he got ran over by the mail lady. RIP tobias. 
  • Josh let me cut down a tree with a chain saw...i've never felt so bad ass in my life.
  • i signed up for community college in the fall (just to take one class but its still funny to say)
  • i had to go to the health department by myself to get typhoid and hep A shots for Brazil
  • Micah drove me around the woods on a suped up gator and i got really bad burns on my legs
  • we had our last CDH dinner on Wednesday and we laughed SO hard it was so good. 
  • we finished TTC and all got in the pool with our clothes on/people pushed other people in. so good.
  • micah and i had a really bad night on Monday so we went to get slushees and got cigars instead and smoked them on the patio and talked until midnight.
  • he's been trying to get me to understand that when things are hard i need to talk to people and not shut people out. he's into teaching me this lesson a lot lately. he's good at talking to people...i'm not.
  • thursday night  jeremy micah maggie and i were coming back from gardner webb and we drove to the river and explored the other unexplored side and climbed trees and saw the most incredible sunset i've seen in a while and jeremy made us stand in the woods and reflect on life then we laid on the hood of the explorer and watched the forest light up with lightning bugs and tried to laugh like animals would and shared life together. after that micah jeremy and i sat outside on the patio and they listed all the reasons they loved me and why i was great and sang you raise me up to me. it was weird and funny.
  • maggie and i broke the paper shredder at the office and found a parts dealer named andres and he hooked us up with new parts. 
  • i've drank a lot of slushees lately
  • i'm sunburnt
  • i have 3 more nights in this house with these people. 
  • the summer mix has been bumping and its pretty real good. 
  • we spent 2 thursdays ago on the lake just chilling and talking and trampoline jumping. it was the best. 
  • everyone has bro tank tanlines and that is awesome.
life has been a little hard lately. the week before last was the busiest week of the year getting ready for camp and it was also the 6 year mark of my best friend Jessica dying. Sunday ended with a lot of driving, a lot of crying, and a trip to target. this week was less busy and we were nicer to each other and i was happier. then friday happened and i got sad again and realized that i had made a dumb decision. so more driving and crying and smoking cigars happened. i bought some kool aid and we watched friends and were sad together last night. then christine told me (after she told me it was okay to mope) that i should read psalm 103. i forgot about it until i looked at bible gateway today and it was the verse of the day. well that's great. so i read it. and it was good.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good

he redeems my life from the pit and satisfies me with good. we've been listening to a lot of spoken word recently and i want someone to turn this into spoken word because it is good. i learned this week that i'm still not good at trusting the lord. sometimes i think i'm good at it and then the bottom falls out and it turns out i'm not. this is a good reminder though. he wants to do all these things for me. he wants to forgive me for being a dumb girl, he wants to heal me (that's another blog post for another day), he wants to redeem me, he wants to satisfy me with good. i don't often feel that he wants to satisfy me with good. i don't think he wants to satisfy me with bad or mediocre things but i think it's hard for me to remember that he wants good for me. i had to remind myself and christine that last week when she was freaking out about a good thing in her life and i had to remind her that it was from god that he wanted to give her this good blessing. we don't have to live in fear , god wants us to have the good life. 

this is a good reminder. a good truth for a new morning. 

i'm setting the sadness on a shelf and i won't remember it. 

Monday, June 3, 2013

i'm selling my car and moving to brazil.
i'm going to grad school at vcu fall 2014.
#summerofkitties is upon us. the mix cd is finished so summer must really be here.
life is moving so fast and so fun.

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