I rarely post serious personal experiences, since those seem more like they belong in a journal rather than a blog. However, below is what happened to me at camp. Skip this post if you want to read higher-quality writing.
Do you know what it took to make me a different person?
Did a life-changing mountaintop summer camp experience come strictly through opening my mosquito-bitten arms to a few hundred children?
No.
Through learning to be a lumberjack? Tree chopping, wood chipping, yelling “Timber!”, or laying a phone line?
No.
It came through the days when no children were at camp, through hours of sitting on a stump amidst a broken pile of trees with nothing but God and His Word. Flipping through pages with dry hands, reading them with wet, weary eyes, and pouring out my heart—straight from chapped lips to an Almighty God.
And it came through having Him answer me. He answered me from a point beyond confession, when my English-major mind could think of no more words.
Change comes from asking God to do whatever it takes, whatever He needs to, to make you into the person He wants you to be.
At camp, I did many things I’m too intimidated to do, like jump off a 40 foot ledge attached to a tree on a zip line. Like going swimming 2,425 feet in the air in the pools of a waterfall in Yosemite. Like being a stand-in mother to several girls a week, 24 hours a day, getting up at 5:30 a.m. and cleaning for hours on end.
I listened to people’s life stories and hold their secrets. I listened to the kinds of things that no one would ever admit, except to an understanding listener with whom they are watching the stars until 4 in the morning. People will say a lot of things when you’re alone with them on top of a mountain.
In return, I told people some of my secrets.
Even here at school this year, I'm doing stuff that would normally scare me, like being president of things and speaking to groups of people.
There is nothing more freeing than doing things you’ve never done before--maybe things that scare you to death--if God is with you.
