Pray for the girls of Cabin 2

I just got back from a full week of camp with the teens from my church! This is the first year that I have been able to go as a counselor and I was nervous. I was praying that God would give me an easy group of girls to lead. I prayed he would hand pick them just for me and my co-counselor Bethany. I prayed that we would get along and no one would cause problems. I even prayed for my cabin to be filled with "church girls", the ones that have grown up in church and have gone to camp most of their lives and know the drill.

I ended up getting a mixture of a few church girls and some unchurched girls. I was nervous that they would not get along and I would be breaking up fights and counseling them on the necessity to be nice and get along. We had no issues! They were good girls! They stayed in the cabin when I asked them to, they were quiet (for the most part) when I asked them to be, and they got along and encouraged each other! Praise God!!!

I found that it was the unchurched girls that I fell in love with the most. They are so real and straight forward. They have questions and aren't afraid or too proud to ask them. They have struggles in their lives that I have never known and they need a real God to rescue them.

Please pray for them: Hannah, Madison, Lauren, Amanda S., Adrianna, Sydney, Lore, Raven, Rainie, Shelby, Amanda D., Kaylee, and Genasys. And of course my co-counselor Bethany! But especially Genasys. She broke my heart and really needs to know a real Jesus to show her that her Heavenly Father loves her, even though her earthly father and step-father are not what they should be.

blessings and failures

2011 was a year of major failures and a few great blessings.

It is easy for me to focus on the bad of the past year. I could tell many more stories of my failure than I could of my successes. I failed God, I failed my parents, I failed almost everyone I know it seems. Many don’t even know how many times I failed in the past year because I was embarrassed and kept them to myself. But overall, I am learning that I have to move beyond them and seize the potential of this year. Through my failures I have learned so much, even when I was allowing them to define me and tell me that I did not deserve the blessings that were in my path.


Coming out of 2011, I was so excited to start over and leave those failures behind. But what I have already realized is that I can't simply leave them in my dust. It's not a new concept that our past has a tendency to follow us around like a shadow, casting gloom on a sunny day. If I don't ask for forgiveness and then forgive myself, I will never be free of those failures.


I would guess I am not the  only one that holds on to things far past their usefulness. What baggage are you still carrying? Is it a relationship that ended badly and you just can't seem to get any closure? Maybe you were fired or laid off from your job and can't seem to find another one because you are holding on to the old one? Or it may be a drug addiction that still haunts you. Or maybe you just feel like an all around failure and can't see around the pile of crap that you have built around you to keep people out.


Whatever it is, I encourage you to talk to God about it. Realizing that He already knows what is going on, but that he wants to hear it from you is oddly comforting. He loves you so much that He desires an open and honest relationship with you. He is our Heavenly Father. Think about the best dad you know. I hope that it is your own father, but some people are not that lucky. That dad that you have in mind, does he get mad when his child comes to him with a problem he needs fixing? No! He is excited to help in some way to make his child's life a little easier. That is what God desires of our relationship with Him.

Consider the prostitute

   You are not defined by what has happened in your past. You may wear the scars of something that you willingly entered into, or something that happened to you without your permission, but those scars don’t have to define who you are. A good example of this lesson is recent Dancing With The Stars winner J.R. Martinez. At 19 he was serving overseas in the military when his vehicle exploded. He made it out alive, but now wears the prominent scars of that experience. He has very visible scars covering majority of his body, but that does not keep him from living a very full life.

  

  He is an inspiration to so many people that think that because they are scarred so badly, they can never live a normal life. Martinez brought his charm and deeply moving story to every dance he performed, and because of it, captured the hearts of the viewers early in the competition. He does not let his scars define what he will accomplish.

    God uses our scars to bring Him glory in the end. Take a look at any person in the Bible and you will be able to see this so clearly. If the men and women in the Bible were this scarred and still made it into the most widely read Holy book in the world, I would say that is clear evidence that God uses the broken along with all of their junk to do amazing things.

   Think of Adam and Eve. The first people to walk the earth, and they literally “walked WITH God” on a daily basis. If they can be broken and scarred in such a major way and still be the parents of the entire population, what can God do with a sinner like me who has never had the pleasure of literally walking along side the real and visible God?

   I have many scars that haunt me on a daily basis, and sadly I lose the battle with them more times than I win, but God is still using me. He has never let me fall so far away that I can’t get back to Him. There have been times when I have been serving in ministry and trying so hard not to let the junk show, because I knew that I really should have been removed from that place of leadership. But, God knew that if that would have happened I would probably have been less likely to work out that junk by falling to my knees and letting God take it off my shoulders.

    One example in the Bible that reminds me that my past does not affect my future impact for the glory of God is Rahab. She was likely a prostitute, yet if you look at the lineage of Jesus, her name is listed as one of the few women in the direct line to the Messiah. If that isn’t testament to the hand of God using our past I don’t know if you are reading it correctly! She was the only person in Jericho that could have hidden the spies the way that she did. She likely lived in what we would consider a brothel, therefore to have men come in to her house would not have raised any red flags, it was probably a common occurrence. But because of her act of courage, she was saved from the slaughter of the other people living in the city, and she was able to save the lives of her family as well. Her story comforts me on my dark days when I feel like my past actions have somehow disqualified me for the grace of God.