Out of My Comfort Zone [part 2]

Yay, it is part 2! I know you are all so excited to read it. :)

In my last post (in case you haven't read it, but you probably should to be up to date), I ended with how I had no idea what God had in store for me the next two days. So let's start back at Nazarene Youth Camp, the second full day there, Wednesday.

That morning when I woke up, I did NOT want to start the day. All I wanted to do was roll back over and go to sleep for forever. But that was not an option, I had to wake my campers up and make sure they would all get to breakfast on time, all with a smile on my face. We went through the normal day routine, breakfast, morning worship, the leaders all had a leaders lab, then we had lip sync battle practice. YES, we were going to have a lip sync battle contest! We had the song "Happy" by Pharrell Williams. After practice we had lunch, then more game competitions. I had originally wanted to do volleyball, but then was put on the flag football team. I was annoyed then got excited to be on it! But at the last few moments of trying to make sure everyone on the Red Team had a sport to do, I was kicked off the football team. I was disappointed, but I was a leader, and having a bad attitude about not getting my way would not have been very Christ-like (ok, even if I wasn't a leader, having a bad attitude would still not have been Christ-like). So Mrs. Tammie and I went around to take pictures, and I ended up staying with the dodgeball team and cheering them on.

I had planned on taking a nap in my free hour before I had to go lifeguard the Sr. Highers again, but my plans were interrupted when a few people wanted to practice our lip sync battle song again. So I dragged my already tired self over to our practice area, and we pulled a few ideas together. Finally, I ran back to my cabin hoping to take at least a 15 minute nap. Of course, that didn't happen, so I decided to walk to the pool early. Image my surprise when I got there and I was the only adult there.

Immediately I went into lifeguard mode and began to get serious. Soon it was time for the Jr. high kids to leave. Sr. High hour came and a BUNCH of kids showed up at the pool. I kept telling myself to breathe, only this many minutes left, and you can calm down again. At 30 after, there were about 30 people in the pool, and I was the only one out of the pool, watching everyone.

Normally, I would have been sort of ok by myself. But these kids were splashing all around, being rowdy, and there were a few special needs kids in the pool as well. I kept a close eye on them, but they seemed to be doing alright. I turned my head to look at the other end of the pool when all of a sudden I heard even more splashing and turned around. A boy had grabbed a girl by the shoulders and was dragging her to the deep end, and it was clear by the look on her face that she could not swim. He let go and left her there, struggling to stay afloat. Trying to remain calm, I told her I was coming and jumped in after her. Praise the Lord she did not seem too shaken by the time we reached the side!

I have saved someone before, and although every life is very precious, something about saving someone you know and care about it different. This girl was on my color team, and I had made it a point to reach out to her and to love her. She was very sweet and had a wonderful smile. Going in and saving her, who I cared about, shook me up more than I thought it would. After swim time was over, it took me forever to get ready for supper because I was still shaky and was still all during supper.

Thinking back on that experience now, I see how true that phrase 'My Lifeguard Walks On Water' is. God is our lifeguard. In rough times in our life, we need to only call out to Him, and He will always be there for us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. We may feel like we are drowning, but with our God, we will never drown. Each life is so precious to Him, and He does not want to see any one person drown or go down the wrong path. We trust the mere human lifeguards in our life. Is there any reason to not trust the One True lifeguard in our life who will never fail us?

That night, the preacher spoke about forgiveness. He said if there was anyone we had wronged in our youth group (or outside our youth group) we needed to throw our pride away and ask for their forgiveness. Without hesitation, God was pulling at my heart. "You know exactly who you need to ask forgiveness from. Throw your pride away. This is only building up a terrible wall inside of you and making you bitter towards this person." I felt like I was going to fly into a million pieces if I ignored the voice. Finally I practically ran out of my pew to find this person. I found the person and asked to talk. I poured my heart asking, asking for forgiveness of judgment, and bitterness, and pride that had built up inside of me for the past 2 years. Tears flowed as I asked for forgiveness, which was so very hard and I was ashamed. This person forgave me and prayed with me, and as we were praying, I felt an incredible amount of peace welling up inside me. Our friendship was repaired, and God brought us back together as two friends, free from the walls that had been built up, and ready to support the other in whatever lay ahead of us.

God was incredible that night. He broke down walls that I had no intention of being broken. He cut down my pride and jealousy and showed me unconditional love. Our God is an awesome God. That whole day was one long, tired, hard day. But God was faithful, and He never left me.

The next day, Thursday, was our last full day. It was awesome. We had paint wars, I got stung by something on my hand, only a few people showed up to swim at the pool, I made even more new friends, and Red Team placed third in our lip sync battle! We were all tired and ready to go home, and the next day after JM challenged us again with what our youth groups could do to minister, we took a camp picture a left for our homes. We always have that feeling of "I'm going to do this, and this, and that when I get home!" Some people actually carry through, and some people don't. Do not let the fact that you are away from the camp atmosphere change what you wanted to do to spread God's Word. We only have one life, and do not waste it because you were too tired, or didn't feel like doing anything today. Those goals you made with your youth group? Actually carry them out. That pledge you made to read your Bible and pray more? DO IT. The God you found at camp never goes away. He's always there. You just have to take those 5 minutes of silent to listen for Him.

Out of My Comfort Zone [part 1]

So yes, I am aware I haven't posted anything in almost a year. I could lie and say I didn't have anything to say, but that is FAR from the truth. There have been plenty of things to say since this past September. But I want to start this new June 2015 blog post afresh. You might have noticed that I've edited my blog and "spiced" it up a bit. It was time for a change.

And speaking of change.

This past week, I was taken out of my comfort zone. I had the opportunity to be a camp counselor to 14 junior high girls (junior high is rising 7th, 8th, and 9th graders). And let me tell you... I WAS NERVOUS. That was something I had never done before and was sure I never would do! Except there I was, facing a week of being a camp counselor, a color team LEADER, and had the title of responsible adult.

Yikes.

Me? An adult? Please, I'm only 20. And I don't even look 20, according to two of my campers, both which informed me of that fact 15 minutes of me walking into my cabin. Ok, maybe if I act all confident, people will think I really am an adult and confident and completely together and chill.

My brain was totally not chill. My mind was racing a million miles a minute and a bajillion thoughts were running all through my brain within the first couple of hours. "Ok, I know about 15 people here out of 200. Since I'm an adult here, who do I hang out with? The adults? The campers? Myself? OH MY WORD WHERE DO I GO. Breathe. CONFIDENCE IS KEY." Thankfully I had my good friend Rebeca there too to help me! Mostly, I was worried if any of my campers and color team was going to like me.

The first night we all went with our color teams and played a game which I have forgotten the name of. But it involved putting panty hose over your head and sticking a RAW egg underneath. You were given two halves of a pool noodle and then given permission to whack other people in the head with the noodles to get their egg to break and they would lose. I was a team leader of TEAM RED and we beasted in that game. In the end, one of our leader's and my pastor's wife still had her uncracked egg (how she managed to get away with that, I will never know), and my other team leader Chris demonstrated the proper way to dispose of an uncracked egg... he smashed it ALL over my head.

On a side note, the first night I brought out a box of snacks that the wonderful Mrs. Tammie had supplied me with for my campers. My campers gasped, looked at the box like it was a pile of gold, proceeded to pounce upon it, and then proclaimed me the coolest camp counselor ever. SCORE.

The next day was Tuesday, the start of our first full day at camp. We started with a message that the preacher for the week, JM delivered. The theme for the week was Filtered. We have so many filters around us and we put up so many filters for other people. JM challenged us every night to not put on a filter, or put God in a box. Do you see God as a little old man? Do you see God as anything besides what the Bible says He really is? Sometimes we have this mold of what we think God should be, and we put a filter on God.
     Then we split into our color groups and had game competitions. Ultimate frisbee, dodgeball, volleyball, spoons, spikeball, and bean bag toss were some of the competitions that were going on. It was super hot outside so the games didn't last that long! Then I had about a 30 minutes break before I headed to the pool to lifeguard for the senior high swim hour.

Lifeguarding is no joke. I hadn't officially lifeguarded in 2 years, but once I got to the pool, I immediately snapped into lifeguard mode and got all serious. There is no time for messing around when it comes to watching out for people's lives. Thankfully, that first day was uneventful and I made some new friends while guarding!

The rest of the day was filled with laughter, food, fellowship, an incredible worship service, and an awesome late night game that involved the counselors running all around and "tagging" campers with pool noodles to keep them from getting balls to add to their basket. I think it was some version of pac-man. It was exhausting running all around and keeping up all my energy and pretending like I was not tired!

Now, don't get me wrong. The first two days were great. I was challenged, pushed to my physical limits (I'm sure I died a few times), laughed too much, and questioned myself. God was working in me, and I'll be honest. That Tuesday night of worship, I couldn't engage in it all the way. Sure, I felt the Holy Spirit's presence and knew God was in there, but it was like Satan was fighting within me and saying "no, tonight you are too tired and besides, you have heard all of this before". But little did I know what was going to happen on Wednesday and the message God was preparing for me for that night.

This was part 1. The next part is even better, or so I think. It's when God really starts getting my attention and saying "see, this was part of my plan, and I had to pull you out of your comfort zone to do MY work".

Until part 2, smile, love people, and rejoice in God's plan for you :)