I want to start off by saying that God definitely shows up. It may be over the course of a week, a month, or it could be a single instance that makes you break out into tears. The fact of the matter is, God will never leave you hanging.
Any who, this blog will be primarily focused on the wonderful time that I spent with the Lord being a leader at a youth camp this past week. I cannot say that it was the best small group that I have ever lead, but that did not stop the Lord from showing up and doing work. One of the main things that you need to know, is that my group of boys was made up of 6th and 7th graders; which explains a lot of the interactions that occurred over the week. I was blessed with the problem children (or at the least, they were the problem children to me), and boy oh boy was it an experience. The very first day I had to pull huge rocks out of a kids pack, as well as stop a boy from pulling plants out of the ground and trying to sell them for profit. Whether it was painting themselves rather than a wall, or spilling a full cup of scolding hot chocolate on the table and the floor, there was never a dull moment. At the very least, I have perfected my dad voice, as well as the classic dad look after all the work I put in. Not to say that the week was not full of positive memories, however, the fact is that my boys were more of a worry in the back of my mind, rather than kids that I could leave by themselves.
The thing is, I really do not know how much of an impact the Lord had on the boys that I watched, but I do know how the Lord showed up big time in my life. Over the course of the week, the Lord began to place certain words and things upon my heart. For the most part, these words did not make much sense until the last day. This was when one of the few things that I did understand was, “Begin in me,” hence where the name of the blog comes from. See, the thing was, that I was trying to build a foundation based on multiple things, yet I was missing the key part of any good foundation: I was missing the Lord. I love the Lord so dearly, but I had yet to place Him as the cornerstone of my heart, the cornerstone of my very existence. As much as I longed to dive deeper into scripture and the Lord, I never could because He was not the definition of my being. I had no more room for Him wherever He was located in my heart. After receiving this revelation, I just broke down into tears. My world was shattered, here I was thinking that Jesus and I were close, while in reality, He was so distant. After laying myself down completely, my work for the week truly began. At worship every night, I began to hear words from the Lord, and for the life of me I could not figure out what they were for. They were these phrases that had nothing to do with me, or so I thought. Come Thursday, we had a joint worship service with both the high school and the middle school kids, and this is the night where the Lord got work done through me. After a pastor had come up on stage and encouraged us to go and pray for others, the words that I have been receiving all week began to make sense. After rushing up to one man who I was called to pray for, I broke out into tears with a broken heart for this man. See, earlier that week, I had prayed a prayer for the Lord to break my heart for what breaks His, and lets just say that it worked. After finally getting my voice out, I prayed for quite a bit over this man. After we finished, I thought my work was done, but that was not the case. I am not really going to go into more detail here, but I cried more in that one night than I have in the past couple years combined.
The second half of this story takes place after worship had finished, and all the campers were sent back to their rooms for the night. Here I was, thinking that camp was over and nothing was left undone, yet once again, the Lord showed up and proved me wrong. Come 1 A.M., around 30 high school boys, me, and a couple of leaders are all sitting in an upper room of our cabin, and I thought I would give a little talk about accountability like I had the year before. But unlike last year, this message was straight from the Lord, and my words had an impact on the young men in that room. I know it was good because I have a very fuzzy recollection of that night, and one of the last things I remember is finishing and seeing the look of all those faces. I could clearly see that I had touched their hearts, yet for the life of me I could not remember what I had said. The thing is, that I had asked the Lord to show up in my life that week, and He did it in a bigger way than I had expected.
So, that is my story of my amazing week at camp, and if you managed to make it all the way to the end, I applaud you! I would like to thank you all for your continued support, whether it is financially or through prayer! If you would like to donate, you can do so at the top of this page, and I would appreciate it greatly! This whole experience confirmed my calling to the Race, and the fact of the matter is, I cannot embark on this trip without your support! I would like to end this blog with, once again, thanking you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read my post, and I hope that you have a blessed week.
