After a lengthy hiatus from the devotional I was working through, I picked it back up and thought it was relevant to the verbal dumping session I had yesterday. So I'll 'journal' my thoughts onto the blog rather than into my written one.
Think about the times when God was evident and at work.
The most tangible and life-changing experience I've ever had was the summer I spent as a counselor at Confrontation Point Ministries. For the first (and really, only thus far) time in my life I learned what it meant to function solely with the grace and power of God. We'd take a different group every week of high school students on a missions/adventure trip that really dug deep into ministry and working with different kinds of people. I can't even describe how much of a blessing it was to lead teenagers through their first-time life-altering experiences, like caving, hanging out and planning worship services for the homeless, working in a facility alongside mentally handicapped people, playing all day with poor Appalachian kids, going into a cave, or rappelling down the side of a cliff. To help teenagers work through the garbage in their lives, to point them towards Christ and through His power create opportunities for their worlds to be rocked by His goodness was unbelievable.
At the end of every week we dragged ourselves back to "base camp" with an 18-passenger van full of tents, cooking supplies, sometimes a lawnmower for the widow's lawns we worked on, tubs of leftover food, climbing and caving supplies, only to unpack, clean it all out, and have an afternoon of solace until we woke up the next morning and did it all over again. Sometimes the experiences we had with the kids and adults were so overwhelming and hard to wrap our minds around that we spend the rest of Saturday debriefing. And sometimes the group we were with were brutally painful to part with, pretty much never to be seen again... or the week was TERRIBLE and we had to find the strength to start all over the next morning.
We were exhausted, both physically and mentally, but somehow God worked miracles and got us through. That summer showed me what it was truly like to be a servant of Christ, to be poured out like an offering for the sake of others. I've also never been in a community of believers like the ones I shared my life with at CP. I believe it was truly a model of what the first followers of Christ looked like-- spending life together and although we were very different people, we came together over our love for Jesus and created bonds that will never be broken.
My life is what it is because God completely turned my world upside down that summer,
and I've never been the same.
Task #2 from devotional:
Create a symbol that will remind you of God's faithfulness in your life. Put this symbol in a place where you will see it often. When you look at it, be reminded and thank God for his blessings.
Already have :)
This will forever serve as a reminder of God's faithfulness that summer at CP!
Oh how I loved seeing the ladies from St. Paul's UMC who all served as counselors in our youth group and led us as we grew! It was wonderful to celebrate Amy and her upcoming marriage. As her matron of honor I had the very important duty of writing down the gifts and taking pictures. 
