Reflections on the Summer

It is time for me to write again. I have been home for a week and a couple days.

This summer was amazing. It was full of joy, laughter, sorrow, tears, hugs, vulnerability, fruit, grace, frustration, patience and endurance. I spent eight weeks in the Deep South: Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. For seven of those weeks, I was entrusted with 4-12 girls ages 13-18 years old. I had some weeks in which fruit in my girls was extremely evident and so encouraging. I had some weeks where fruit wasn't visible and thus I had to trust in Him to preserve and grow my girls after they left camp.

I loved having one-on-ones with girls. Small talk and making conversation is extremely difficult for me but I thrived when I was able to sit down with one girl at a time and delve deeper into who they were and what their relationship with our Lord and Savior looked like.

At the beginning of the summer, Randy Sims said, "These [concerning the staff] are going to be some of your best friends after this summer is over; they'll be some of the people in your wedding and some of the first that you will call when your children are born." I turned my nose up at such a statement knowing I had plenty of those people at home. By the end of the summer, I was proved wrong. The staff this summer were such blessings. With eight weeks together, there isn't room to dilly-dawdle with friendships. You either jump in and swim or you just sit there. Vulnerability cannot be avoided. The staff is your local Body for the summer and if you don't rely on them, struggles, trials and triumphs are going to be miserable.

Coming home was extremely difficult. I cried all day Saturday as I got on the plane, landed in Phoenix, waited for the next plane, got on my Albuquerque flight and arrived home. I was a fountain that day. I think that Saturday finally allowed me time to process the summer. Not only was I leaving my Worldview family but I was expressing my overflowing emotional tank for every week of camp that I went through: the joys and sorrows at that point were extremely real and could not be held back any longer.

I learned so many things this summer. A couple things that really stuck with me without my having to look over my journal entries from the summer are dying to self and the Body of Christ. Being on staff with Worldview is a dying to self all the time. While I was with my students during the week my time was not my own. From 1:30 pm on Sunday to 3:30 pm on Friday, I was at camp. I was my students'. I belonged to them. By His grace, I was continually engaging them, asking them questions, finding out what they are passionate about. I was not allowed to talk of myself. There is a paragraph in our Staff Playbook that talks about dying to self. It says, "When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works or itch for commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown, that is dying to self." The paragraph talks of many more ways in which dying to self is exemplified but this was the most applicable and memorable point for my summer. I love talking about myself and this summer did not allow for such things to be present. It was so good. It was difficult and frustrating and awkward at times but the call and reward of dying to self, seeing Him glorified, was so much greater than seeing myself glorified at the end of the week. If I gave my students me, they would come home with worthless knowledge and insight. If I gave my students Christ working through me, they would have nothing more priceless.

The second thing that God was so good to reveal to me this summer was concerning the Body of Christ. Oftentimes at home, I feel part of a Body but a small part of me wants more. I never was able to pinpoint why I was discontent in that and why "more" was always on my mind. I spent this summer with 20 or so brothers and sisters in Christ. As I said previously, vulnerability came quickly and the Lord bonded us together in unity in ways that are not normal. It was obviously His doing and not ours. By the end of the summer, one of the staff guys, in answer to a question related to a recent move by his family, said, "I've learned home is where your family is." I never felt displaced this summer with all our travelling and being in and out of dorms and hotels. I never wished that we would just settle down somewhere. I was content in our transient lifestyle. I find my contentment rooted in the fact that my home this summer was where my family was and I was always with my WVA family and thus I was always home.

This summer included conversations about suffering and comfort, about glory, about love and joy. I loved breaking down Scripture and getting to the root of those simple words. This is where true fellowship lies. As I returned home, my heart broke for I had to leave people that I experienced more love for in a short amount of time than anyone else prior. I longed to be where they were. I longed to serve alongside them again. Knowing there most likely will never be a time that we will all be back together again on this earth, I long for heaven when we can rejoice at His great work for the rest of eternity.

I remember sitting in a magnolia tree in Georgia with Lizzie and MK our last week of camp after Monday night staff prayer meeting. We were talking about the guy staff and how parting ways that coming Saturday wouldn't change our relationships with our sisters but the relationships that we developed with our brothers at camp would not be maintained in quite the same way as they were all summer. Marriage and the desire for such things was mentioned. I realized, because of the fellowship experienced with my sisters and brothers this summer, that my desire to be married was much less at that moment. How to explain? I realized that our emotional desire for marriage is fueled out of a longing to be in an intimate relationship with another person. God has been so good to give us the institution of marriage to answer our desire to be in intimate relationships (which I would argue is God-given to begin with but that's a different path). I had always wondered how if I long for marriage in such ways now, how I would not desire such things in heaven. I knew that I wouldn't because discontentment is not something we will be struggling with but how that worked, I could not comprehend. This summer gave me a small peek into the glorious fellowship that we shall experience after this life. I did not desire marriage this summer because intimacy was existent with my brothers and sisters; it was not present in a physical sense but in an emotional sense, it was very present. Marriage, in a way, if a shadow of the intimacy that we should experience with Christ and all believers once in heaven. After that conversation, I found myself longing for heaven more than marriage because in heaven, we are able to have perfect relationships with our sisters and brothers in Christ and with Christ, Glory Himself.

From all of these previous paragraphs concerning the staff this summer, my point is this: there is more to the Body of Christ than that which I had experienced before camp on this earth. I did not know that I could have such deep love for my brothers and sisters and yet this summer gave me a glimpse of that and a hope of that as I return to a new church body here at home. I was so excited to be at church on Sunday, more excited than I ever have been to go to be with the Body.

I feel like I did a poor job explaining my thoughts and feelings toward this summer but as I continue to process and work things out in my head maybe I can make more sense of such things in words.

P.S. Concerning my post on the book I was reading by Francine Rivers and the main characters' headstrong ways: I have since gotten much farther in said book and have found that the main character does not know how to love her enemies. She stands for her own will and desire continually and encourages rebellion within her children. Yes there is a balance, but the main character in said book is a very poor example of such things.