“Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.” Proverbs 24:27
These past 7 months have been a time of preparation. A time to prepare my heart, my spirit, and my mind. A time to prepare to end a season of my life, and a time to prepare for a new season to begin. I was spending time with the Lord earlier this week and He led me to this verse in Proverbs. I don’t know how you spend your time with Jesus, but I tend to journal. I began writing to Him and I realized how much I had planned to be prepared before I left for the race. I planned on going to see a lot of friends. I planned on reading several books (including all of Harry Potter). I planned to spend a long period of time hanging out with my sister and parents. I planned on having plenty of time to fundraise. Isn’t it amazing how much we try to plan for ourselves? There have been so many times this summer that I’ve been attacked by Satan and told lies that I’m not ready, that I haven’t had enough time to prepare while doing camp. The funny thing is, as the summer comes to an end with only 2 full days left, I have already begun the processing and looking back on the summer. I can see so clearly how He has been preparing me all long.
I prayed for preparation before our counselors even arrived for training, and I was so blinded with what I thought I needed that I didn’t even see God using every camper, every counselor, every joy, and every struggle, to not only teach me something of great value, but also to pull me closer to Him. I AM SO IN LOVE! He has rescued me from my own mind, my own fears, my own doubts, and He plays Galatians 2:20 over and over inside my head, the verse that has been written on my heart since I first opened my heart to God and died to myself, God has changed me from the INSIDE OUT. He is still equipping me and still helping me to prepare myself for the race (in less than a month), but now my eyes are opened to it. Training did that for me. I went into training with no expectations, only excitement. If I’m going to be honest, I was asking people at camp to pray that I would not be timid, but that I would be open and that I would be myself. The funny thing is that I was more “ME” at training than I had been all summer. I got to be who God created me to be. No limits, no walls, no pressure, no stress, JUST ME. How freeing! I was set free at training from more than the chains that were holding me down. I was set free from the walls that I had built out of fear of disappointing everyone around me, the fear of failure, the fear of letting people down, not holding up to their expectations for me. I’m not perfect. At training I was able to admit what I was struggling with and be honest and open and in turn be free of those millions of thoughts that go through my mind. I was able to encourage, to serve, to love, to be vulnerable, to be REAL. This is the preparation I needed. This is what I needed to discover this summer, who I am in Christ, what it really means to be crucified with Him knowing it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. I will prepare outside in the field in these last few weeks, and with God’s help, I will go build my house among the nations!
