of orphans and kingdoms.

This is Jonathan Edwards’ observation of his future wife, Sarah Pierpont, before he met her. 

Oh, that this may be said of me one day…

“On Sarah Pierpont” by Jonathan Edwards

“They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that almighty Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him—that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always.  There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love, favor and delight, forever.  Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction.  She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and sweetness of temper, uncommon purity in her affections; is most just and praiseworthy in all her actions; and you could not persuade her to do anything thought wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this great Being.  She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after those times in which this great God has manifested himself to her mind.  She will sometimes go about, singing sweetly, from place to [place]; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows for what.  She loves to be alone, and to wander in the fields and on the mountains, and seems to have someone invisible always conversing with her.”

misstaramichelle:

On Thanksgiving Eve, we went on a chilly but heart-warming picnic.

Complete with hot cocoa and scrumptious sandwiches… and a pomegranate.

We ran. danced. booty bumped. lept-frog (past tense?). picked grass.

Can I just say what a joy it is to run around with your best friend?!

And then a lady came to walk her dog, so we whipped our hair. The end.

At staff training, I remember reading 2 Chronicles 16:9: “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.” Thus began my questioning: “Is my heart completely His? What are those barriers keeping me from being completely His?” And then I began to ask Him to reveal to me what those idols were and begin to remove them from my life.  I began to pray Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there is any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

Through this process, I realized that idols don’t just have to be material things, but they can be people and even expectations for the future. Through all the ups and downs of the summer, I was challenged and tried. In the past, when I had been living comfortably, it was easy for me to cling to things of the world in times of difficulty. During camp, I really didn’t have those things that were objects of comfort, and I found myself clinging to the only thing in my life that is constant and readily available: my very faithful heavenly Father.

He made me aware of these idols in different ways, and at different times. And these are idols that have become accepted by most of American society simply because we have right to those things because we are human! But really do we have a right to anything? We don’t even own these lives. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 7:19-20).

Some of these idols I was made aware of are things that we usually don’t even give a passing glance to: things like sleep and comfort, friends and “normal” expectations that we have for our futures. Things that I had been clinging to at home at school I suddenly couldn’t cling to at camp. It is a place very separate from the world (in a good way).

So as I was made more aware of these idols I began to realize what it was that I had to do to rid myself of them, because in the deepest places of my heart, I definitely didn’t want them to be ruling over my life. There is only enough room for one throne in the palace of my heart, and I know Who I want to be seated on that throne. I want more than anything else for my heart to be completely His.

1 Samuel 7:3-6: “Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, ‘If you return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve Him alone; And He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.’ So the sons of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtaroth and served the Lord alone. Then Samuel said, ‘Gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you.’ They gathered to Mizpah, and drew water and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day and said there, ‘We have sinned against the Lord.’”

Repentance: removing those idols and turning from their sin, and directing their hearts toward the Lord in order to serve only Him. It looks the same today. Repenting of idols means completely ridding yourself of them. Oh it can be painful…and they like to creep back up…especially when you’re back in the real world! But for me, directing my heart towards Him is a daily thing. It’s something I’m still learning, but it’s a journey that made a progression this summer. Idolatry is such a deadly sin. Think about the Israelites in the Old Testament. Idolatry constantly drew them away from the Lord. It spits in the Worthy One’s face. Now, I don’t want to do that! How can I spit in His face when He’s been so good to me…yet I do it all the time. But when conviction comes, then repentance should come.  And conviction definitely came this summer.

To close, I’ll share a song by Bethany Dillon that has recently become my prayer. It’s entitled “Deliver Me,” and the lyrics go like this:

Deliver me from my prideful mind

It weighs heavier on me all the time

What a silent, yet, such a deadly crime

To think that I own my own life

So humble me just like You did

The king who lost his mind in the wilderness

And don’t let me go back

Until I confess

You are the only God

Deliver me from my hateful thoughts

I’m committing murder in the presence of God

Break my heart just like David’s was

With a weeping, pregnant widow in my house

How can I despise my brother

When I killed Your only begotten Son?

Help me prefer another and say

You are the only God

This morning my alarm went off

Earlier than I’d ever want

And in this small obedience, Lord

Help my heart stay bowed down

Father, You’ve given Jesus

All those He will raise up

And all eyes, including mine, will see

You are the only God

So…in part one I talked a little about staff training—ropes course and mixed feelings about whether or not I really wanted to be at camp…not that I really had a choice.  But how through those difficulties, I began my journey on recognizing God’s faithfulness and realizing His goodness in the midst of trying circumstances.

I guess now I’ll continue on with staff training and my first session, and how the Lord began to refine me during that time. I remember the day before the girls arrived that all the staffers began to walk around camp and pray over the campers who would arrive in the next couple of weeks.  I was walking along, but then just sat down beside the Cheyenne village (where I lived the whole summer) and opened my Bible to Isaiah 49, where I read in verse 22: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations and set up a standard to the peoples; And they will bring your sons into their bosom, And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.’” And I thought about His precious daughters who would come into that village, and how the standard that He had set up for me was to carry them on my shoulders. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever carried anyone on your shoulders, let alone multiple people, but that is what I began to picture: me carrying five other screaming and laughing middle school girls on my shoulders…and that sounds pretty painful…and pretty impossible for a petite-ish girl like me. But whoa, what a standard. And what a challenge.

There is no way in this world that I could have carried those 20 girls that I roomed with this summer on my shoulders by myself, but He has said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). And what weaknesses they were: impatience, exhaustion (physical and mental), apathy, complaining…yet through His power and His goodness I made it through. And I can honestly look back at my summer and say that without the Lord as my strength and refuge I would not have made it. 

There came a time during first session that I was thinking, “Lord, this is really hard…like really hard. I didn’t think it would be this hard! Why did you call me here?” I knew I had been obedient to the Lord in going to camp, but why was it just so hard?! There came a point that while reading my Bible, and reading other books (especially Spiritual Leadership…holla at my Calvary crew) that I began to understand.

In “Jesus Calling” I read (from the perspective of Jesus): “I chose to pour my light into you so that you can be a beacon to others. There is no room for pride in this position. Your part is to reflect My glory. I am the Lord.”

I wrote this in my journal from “Spiritual Leadership”: “True leaders must be willing to suffer for the sake of objectives great enough to demand their wholehearted obedience.”

And in all this I was reminded that the Lord has His purposes, and we must allow Him to have His way. Precious metals must be refined by the fire. Clay must be made soft before it can be used by the Potter. When the clay is hard, making it to become soft and pliable is not an easy job. It probably hurts the clay, not that the clay has feelings or anything, but if it did…I could only imagine. I love the imagery of the Lord as the Potter and us as the clay. Clay jars aren’t amazing works of art. They aren’t awe-inspiring museum pieces (most of the time). They are simply household items for holding everyday necessities. Yet the Lord has chosen to fill us with His treasure and with His light, so that when He does chip at us, His light shines through. His power for our weakness. Praise Him.

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves…” 2 Corinthians 4:7

“Blessed be the Lord, Because He has heard the voice of my supplication. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank Him. The Lord is their strength, And He is a saving defense to His anointed. Save Your people and bless Your inheritance; Be their Shepherd and carry them forever.” Psalm 28:6-9

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

(I promise to be quicker on the update with the next blog post. Thanks for your patience, friends!)

Disclaimer (I realize it’s long, but you should read it. I promise it will make more sense if you do.): I will be starting a blog series on what I learned at camp this summer…this might seem obvious from the title. I debated on whether or not to do this, thinking that the chances of people actually reading this are slim to none, but then decided on doing it. If not for others reading pleasure, then for my own benefit…kind of sorting through and organizing things in my journal and sorting through some pretty rad memories. And also so that others might rejoice in the things the Lord did this summer in one small corner of the universe: WinShape Camp for Girls. So this was my summer…I hope that you will enjoy reading what the Lord taught me over a two month period. I hope to maybe share some stories from some of the campers’ lives (anonymously, of course). Feel free to rejoice with me over victories won and I hope that the Lord might use these posts to speak volumes of His faithfulness and goodness. I hope you enjoy reading about my summer…the summer that I affectionately like to call “the best summer of my life.”

I went off to camp with butterflies in my stomach: butterflies of both excitement and nervousness. From the moment I stepped out of the car into the blazing sun, I was out of my comfort zone. Surrounded by so many smiling, energetic, friendly staff-greeters, I was eager to see a familiar face in my dear friend, Sara (aka Blevs).  Being around over 300 new faces was daunting, especially with people reassuring me that by the end of the summer these people would be like my family and that WinShape would feel like home to me. On the first day, I was very optimistic about what my camp experience would be, especially from what I had heard from other friends who had worked at summer camps. (This coming from a girl who never really went to summer camp, apart from random one-week church camps at the beach.) By the middle of staff training, it seemed dauntingly impossible that this camp-place would ever be my home and I was an emotional wreck on the inside (life of an ISFJ, right Kimbo?). Doubts, uncertainties, and confusion plagued my once-optimistic thoughts of how “glamorously granola” a camp counselor job seemed.

That’s the first place where I was flat-out wrong. 

Maybe you can see where I was my first few nights at camp. Here are some things I put in my journal (you might notice that a lot of what I put is just scripture…I kind of think it just speaks for itself most of the time. Elaboration isn’t always necessary for me…so a lot of the time my journal just has scripture after scripture written. It still speaks my heart.):

Wondering why in the world I was even there, I found this verse: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.” Proverbs 25:2

“He who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope. And He will deliver us.” 2 Corinthians 1:10

“Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” Psalm 55:22

“Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah.” Psalm 62:8

“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.” Psalm 73:28

“Perfect Love casts out my fears.”

So it took me a while to fully accept that I was there, and that it would be tougher than I thought (maybe more on this later…).

The second place I was flat out wrong? There was NO way that I would ever get on the high ropes course. Ennh…wrong. 

Well, a few days later a day that was dreaded…I mean dreaded…in my mind came to be. It was inevitable. Even Rebecca Black knew it. After Friday comes Saturday, and Sunday comes afterward. And just as she sang, after Friday, Saturday did come. Which meant only one thing to me: the ropes course. I am NOT a heights/harness/walk-across-a-skinny-wire-four-stories-above-the-ground kind of person, but I kind of think that God is. Habakkuk 3:19…”The Lord GOD is my strength, 
And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, 
And makes me walk on my high places” was something I would study later in the summer…but now it comes to mind as a reminder of the Lord’s faithfulness.

(Ok. As I’m writing this, “Never Once” by Matt Redman comes on. “Carried by your constant grace, held within your perfect peace, never once did we ever walk alone. You are faithful, God You are faithful.” I get chills when I hear it. Oh yep, that’s a good one. Who ever said the good Lord didn’t have a sense of humor that’s a bit coincidental? Just had to share that with you guys.)

Back to my story. I did it…He did it. He did it through me. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13 is true, guys. It’s not a fluke. It was His strength. I had the choice to put on that harness, climb up that tree, and walk across a half-inch wire, but He did it…I would have never made the choice to do that on my own. But because of that small victory “I am capable because Christ’s power is available” became made manifest in my own life. It may seem a small thing to you, but to me it meant so much. He is a trustworthy God and He rejoices with us when we conquer fears and strongholds in our lives! I felt that in that moment! To feel walls of fear and barricades of doubt come crumbling down can be the most freeing feeling in the world. And because of that moment that I chose to completely trust Him, throwing all my worries and worldly thoughts to the wind, I began to encounter other strongholds that crumbled under the weight of God’s power and glory.

And now I want to continue to trust Him in areas that I was wary of before. Who says that I can’t learn to rock climb?! Pshht…harness smcharness.  It’s something that I want to do now…because it’s something that is hard for me. I’m not good at it and it scares me. But hey…God’s power is shown in our weaknesses, and if we’re not willing to step out and act on our weaknesses, then how can His power be shown? I can’t pretend like I’m good at everything…I’m not. I’m terrible at a plethora of things. But who’s to say that God can’t work through that?

Looking down from my perch on that wire, I saw (approximately) 23 young ladies below me encouraging me, believing in me and the power that the Father could work through me. They were literally holding my harness tight and helping me belay as I leaned back and trusted them to help me gracefully fall 100 feet (if it’s even possible to fall gracefully). Little did I know that weeks later, when I was at the end of my rope, figuratively, overwhelmed by my own weaknesses, these same girls would be there with their harnesses on, ready to help me fall into the gracious arms of the Father. And having them to help encourage me and remind me where my strength lies was and is a blessing. A blessing that I couldn’t have imagined the caliber of while standing on that thin, little wire a few days into staff training. But through my tight rope walk, I learned a lot about the Lord’s strength in my weaknesses, His faithfulness to fight for us, and the blessings that can come from Godly community. These are just a few things that I would continue to learn…things that I am continuing to learn. Thanks, Camp WinShape and awkward week of staff training, for teaching me that.