Firstly, I learned how God allows us to experience Him through different aspects of his creation. Whether it was through the people or the most beautiful pieces of nature I found myself entangled in, I was constantly aware of his presence out at camp. There is this mysterious way that the Lord captures your heart and sets it solely upon Mim while you are out there. There is little time or desire to wish for the things of the world, the buildings that obstruct views, or the lukewarm American dream. When I am under the stars on the smooth rocks of the 'bathtubs' or leaping into the refreshingly clear river, or cave spelunking deep beneath the earth, or floating in the mud pit or worshipping in the pavilion, I am all there. The many beauties of His creation taught me what it meant to be completely, undividedly present within a particular moment in time and to embrace all that it had to offer.
As a camper I learned what it meant to surrender to plans of the Lord. What it was to profess my faith, which led to a public display of my testimony & the sweet moment that was my baptism in that chilly July river. That was the first time I had ever shared my testimony and the start of what would be a journey that would ask me to continue to share it abundantly.
As a counselor, I sought to find confidence in the Lord's ability to use even the darkest parts of my story to change lives and I found great joy as He did exactly that. I would pray each week with new groups of campers that he would reveal what He had brought me out of and how He had worked significantly on my heart since. Then, each week something else vulnerable and hard and scary would come into light. I learned to find not fear, but freedom in sharing my heartache, abandonment, impurities, all of the blemishes of my life and to walk away knowing I didn't have to carry them alone.
I learned to let the big things be important and the petty things fall away while living in close quarters with at least 13 other girls. Humility was a lesson many of us learned that summer, whether it was through another girl crushing on the same guy or just not letting myself get in the way of the ministry being done. I figured out quickly that I was not important in the ways God was rapidly and evidently moving all across camp and through those that found themselves changed there. It could go on if I wasn't there but I had this really awesome opportunity to simply be apart of it and I wouldn't have traded it for anything else.
Being involved in such a close-knit community of counselors, I saw what a man pursuing the Lord truly looked like. I internalized the fact that they aren't these perfect guys that have no struggle, rather they struggle with the same things anybody else may but their focal point of Jesus sets them straight again. It was a sweet reminder that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God but that He still believes us to be precious and uses us in mighty ways despite.
I saw the fellowship of a strong community of Christian men. We women got to partner with a different guy each week and see them lead in such inspiring ways. I learned that even a Christian man has struggles and is guilty of sin. There is no perfect man. That may have been one of the most impactful lessons in store for me that summer, that I did not have to be perfectly pursuing the Lord without failure to find a man that was a strong and faithful leader. I fell in love with many attributes that pointed back to the Lord, embodied by these guys I lived life with each day, which encouraged my dependence on the Lord with my future and with my potential mate with whatever journey he is currently walking through (wherever/whoever "he" may be).I learned the might of a faithful woman devoted to prayer. I saw prayer move mountains, change hearts and impact lives, including our own. I saw a group of about twenty women pray and overcome obstacles by addressing them head-on after giving them up to God. I watched that same group live together in a cabin for thirteen weeks without one single quarrel, that in itself is incredible and unheard of but I witnessed it and it was real. Women living in tune with other women was one of the most beautiful, joyous occasions. I learned what it meant to have empathy toward one another, to hold each other accountable, to ask the hard questions, and to acknowledge we were not in competition but running the same race, on the same team, toward the same perfect goal of bringing Him glory.
I learned what it meant to rest in the Lord. To find a certain peace in spending a quiet alone time with him and what a difference this could make in the start of a day.
Just to mention a few...
Camp Eagle is a special place
& Jesus is a merciful God.
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