Love God, Love Campers, Love Camp

Camp is a wonderful and magical place. It has been my place of residency for the past three summers. It is the place where I gained my self-confidence and my college weight. I was there when it became real to me that I can't do anything without Jesus to do it for me. I plan to continue working there until they make me leave.

So I was asked to work last weekend and I did. It was wonderful. I usually learn some major life lesson over the span of a summer at Camp, but I learned this one in just one little weekend. I learned that I'm not God, which is something that one would think I already had learned after nearly twenty years on this earth. But apparently not.

While at Camp, I got to hang out with two lovely girls who were both a little older than me. One of them was really stubborn. I got frustrated easily with her because I wanted her to obey me more often. She didn’t like to obey me, so we butted heads a little because I'm stubborn too, and I didn't want to back down or compromise, because compromise means you don't win. 

But then I remembered that this is Camp, not a war. I'm here to help my campers reach their full potential and be their happiest. If a camper and I are not agreeing on something, I should try to work it out calmly and smoothly before I go all crazy stubborn on her. 

I asked myself why I feel this need to be right and obeyed. Is it really in the best interest of my camper if I forget why I asked her to do something, but cannot let it go until she does it? I realized that I want people to blindly obey me, at the cost of maybe even their lives.

This is the part when I realized that I'm not God. I wish that everyone around me would bow and be humbled and confess all of their secrets to me. I wish that everyone did what I asked them to do at the exact minute that I thought about maybe asking them to do it. I want to be God because He is the ultimate, and I want to be the ultimate. I want to be who people want and need to spend time with for the rest of their lives. I want people to depend on me, and I will give them grace if I feel like it. I want people to beg me for mercy and tell me how wrong they were. I want to be an authority on everything and I want to be right all the time. 

I realize that I sound like a terrible monster, but I'm just speaking the truth. This is what my sinful heart desires. I normally act like a sweet person whose heart is kind and innately good, but I'm not. Just knowing that I want these things shows me why I couldn't be God, because He does not use His power in this way at all. He uses His power to save me even when I continually don't deserve it, and to give me grace when I am being horrible (which is always). 

I get to worship Him. Getting to spend time worshipping Him and being around Him at all is lovely to me. I get strength just from the shadow of His wing. I am hoping that sticking around Him all the time for the rest of forever will translate to me being a more gracious person, because as a camp counselor who isn't God, my job is to show the grace that I am constantly being given to all the people around me. 

My campers are at Camp to enjoy being who they are, and I am at Camp to enjoy who they are. I get to show them how heard, wonderful, and special they are. I can only do this if I am actually loving them, not obsessing over if they are obeying me or not. I get to live a life of love, not of criticism. I choose love today, and I choose it now for the rest of forever.

Love,

Lauralicious