Well okay. Rundown of what's happened since January.
Impact counselor applications came out, were submitted, read, interviews happened, selections went down, and suddenly my foursome of Tyler, Elijah, Emma, and I became an eighteen-some. Omega Benji 2014 is the best, basically. I am continually thankful for how wonderful they all are, how amazing my girls are, our studly man counselors, the support of Emma and Elijah, Tyler as my partner and co-captain of Struggle Bus, and the just general idea that "Oh my gosh I get to serve with these humans and glorify Jesus what even is this."
It's still a pretty weird idea that the Lord put Tyler and I in charge of a camp, and we frequently joke about how some mistake must have happened because there's no way someone would actually trust us to be in a leadership role. But every Thursday when we run a camp meeting, reality hits us and we have to face up to the fact that we aren't in control of anything (hallelujah) but it's okay because we don't really need to be.
So there's that weird mess of me continually attempting to trust the Lord with Impact. The last few months have shown me what happens when I don't trust him. And it is like an F5 tornado came in and tore up my life (in a good but still painful way).
Without going into a lot of detail, I've stumbled my way through this semester. I played the whole "Christian girl" game of saying all the right things and doing all the right actions, but inside I still, STILL, struggled with the fact that my pride was a pill I couldn't swallow; I was still horribly convinced that I could do my chaotic semester of school, social, Impact, sorority, and a whole slew of other things all on my own and it would be great and wonderful.
But it wasn't. Every time I turned around, I was dropping one of the pieces I was juggling. School was the first to fall. Then went the roommates. Then my other friends. Then my spare time. I've never been good at time management, and I knew I was only one slip-up away from falling flat on my face with Impact (something I was terrified to drop). The Lord gave me a good shake though, and I found myself in a boxed in space with no way out EXCEPT for Him.
My juggling act had failed. Too many things had slipped through the cracks. Relationships and school suffered. I had to cut out parts of my life that I had been clinging desperately to. Things that the Lord had given me to see if I trusted him enough to give back. And it took me an embarrassing amount of time to return them, to finally open up my hands and say, "Okay, here, take it. Because I can't do this anymore."
Now, my priorities are school, Impact, and my roommates, with Christ at the center. Every day is a fight to keep those things where they are on my priority list while still moving forward in life. Every day I have to remind myself what a disaster the first half of my semester was so I can cling to the only part of my little life that wasn't, isn't, and never will be a mess: my faith that the Lord loves me and forgives me.
Because I need a lot of love and a lot of forgiveness.
But it's because of the love that I get forgiveness, and it's through the forgiveness that I am loved.
That truth has been evidenced by every single person I have been around this semester. My roommates love me in my disaster. My camp loves me even though I know that I could be better at leading. My family has been a constant force of prayer and love. I can't imagine what this semester would have looked like if I hadn't had a force of people pushing me forward every moment of every day.
My semester was a mess. A lot of tears over a lot of things have been shed. But the amount of laughter, wonderful times with people I love, productivity, and inexplicable joy that has come from the last few months have left a patchwork of healing over the scars.
