Twice in one day!!!! look at me go!!!!
Not really. My last post was written back in May, I just never got around to posting it.
This summer is halfway over and boy has it been a ride. I couldn't even begin to tell about some of the crazy things that have happened. For starters, my car has all but crapped out on me. If you're driving around Bryan/College Station and you're wondering why the green Ford Escape in front of you is going 20 miles under the speed limit, don't hate me.
I just recently went to camp with Bridges Community Church to Falls Creek. What an unbelievable experience. I don't know what I expected, but I was not at all prepared for what God had in store. I could go on and on about the things that happened but I wont. I simply want to give a "brief" overview of what happened in the lives of two of my students and in the lives of two humbled college girls who just THOUGHT they had an idea of how mighty their God was.
I was blessed to have the high school girls at camp this year, along with serving beside one of my dearest friends, Ashely Urbanovsky. When we got to camp, we had 6 high school girls, two of whom were denying Christianity.
Victoria, one of the girls, believed that there was probably a God but she didn't believe in Jesus. Victoria and I go way back. I have known her since my freshman year in college and have loved getting to watch her grow. For as long as I have known her, Victoria has battled with her beliefs. We spent a lot of time talking one on one and with the rest of the girls about God and about Jesus and about forgiveness. A lot of what we talked about was difficult for me to say and I know was really hard for Victoria to hear. She wanted answers and she wanted tangible, secular evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, and no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find it. Thursday of that week at camp, Victoria and I sat down and got real with each other. We talked a lot about how sin is a cycle and often times when someone hurts us, we hurt other people the same way. We talked about forgiveness and how, even though Victoria felt like she couldn't accept God's forgiveness if she couldn't forgive herself for things, God's forgiveness was already given, regardless. In tabernacle that night, at the end of the message, the speaker reiterated everything we had talked about that week to answer any of Victoria's questions, but Victoria had stepped out to go to the bathroom and missed the entire thing. My heart was broken. I said some not nice things to Satan and I sat down in the middle of the row, on the ground and I cried. Ashley sat down next to me and cried with me. It was that moment that Ashley and I realized that it was time to step out of the way, let go of our pride, and let God do His job. We had already seen God say things through us that we had no idea where they came from. We knew He was working, but we felt like we could give it that little extra push if we just kept trying. That's not how God works. That night, there on the floor, I let go. I couldn't do anything but pray and trust that God was still at work in a more powerful way than the devil. In small group that night, Victoria told us that between tabernacle and small group she had decided to take that leap of faith, to not only profess to be a Christian, but to change her life and actively seek Christ. Obviously, that just etched in stone what God had shown Ashley and I already that night. Move out of the way and let God work.
Niky, Victoria's cousin, came to camp with a lot of hurt in her life and a decision of whether or not to forgive someone who had been hurting her for a long time and she had no relationship with her father. Niky's view of God was that He created the world and then left us all to suffer. She and I spent a lot of time talking about forgiveness. Friday afternoon, Niky and one of the other girls and I sat and talked about how important forgiveness is and that even though Niky's father isn't in her life, she has a Father who loves her that much and more, so much so that He saw us, in our sin and brokenness and said "I want you. I want you so much that I will sacrifice my own Son, just to be able to adopt you into my family and call you my child." I told Niky that afternoon that I couldn't make her believe, and that I wasn't going to stay around and pressure her or make her feel like she had to do anything right then and there. I hugged her and I let her go about the rest of her afternoon. That night at tabernacle, during the invitation, Niky kept making eye contact with me. I told Ashley that Niky was fighting it, so I prayed hard while the music played. Right before the end of the invitation, Niky turned around one more time and held my eye contact then said to me "will you walk with me?" Those words, the look on her face, I will never forget. My God had come through...He does, always.
Ashley and I came back to College Station with such elation and excitement about what God had done and what God was going to continue to do in the lives of those girls and in our lives. It wasn't long before we realized that we expected College Station to have experienced the same movement that we experienced. When reality set in, Ashely and I took it hard. I think we both cried silently through the sermon at church that Sunday. The rest of that day was hard for me. Satan knew I was struggling and he attacked again and again. Most of last week I spent feeling alone. I felt like no one understood and I tried to talk to a few of my friends and took their response as them not caring. That wasn't the case, but that's sure what it felt like at the time. God has since shown me the beauty in the fact that I am different. We are not called to fit in, we are called to stand out. I am different because there is no way to experience God and not be changed. The beauty is that I have a story, I have a gem, that people will notice I am different in the way I act, the things I say and the way I carry myself, and they will want to know what happened.
Ashely has been an unbelievable blessing in my life and I could not ask for a better partner in crime to share this experience with. Its not easy. Sometimes I still feel alone when I want to talk to my best friends but I cant. But every day God has revealed a new blessing to remind me that He is still working, whether that comes in the form of a new friend who came out of no where, an old friend who really does understand, or a burning desire to study His word that wasn't there before. God is good and I am so thrilled to be where I am.
My heart is hurting for my Aunt Bettie. I love her dearly and would give anything for a chance to hug her neck. We face a long road... but I say we, because my family fights as a team. We dont walk roads like this alone. Yes, these trials hurt and these trials are hard, but these trials make us stronger and give us a bond that other people cant understand.