#glisson

From the minute that my discipler prayed for me at the last Wesley of the year in May and thanked God for making me new, I knew that I had been restored. Jesus had done so many things in my life in the past year and has blessed my life with so many things. Not getting hired for summer 2012 was so hard, but Jesus used it for His will. Through the experience, I realized that working at Glisson was MY plan, not God's plan. It was so difficult to realize, but through it He's blessed me so much. Throughout the year, the Lord made it evident that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And as I walked up to the door of G5 this summer and saw the door decorations and as I realized that theme for the summer was All Things New, I truly felt like I was exactly where I needed to be. Through every single experience this summer at Camp Glisson, I realized so much about myself and so much about serving the Lord and I could not be more thankful for the experiences that I have had.

Week One I fell in love with my high school girls the first night. Somehow on the first night I ended up telling them my testimony and it was so powerful. What are the odds that my very first night of having campers I tell them my testimony? It was so crazy and I immediately connected with them. Later on in the week, I ended up telling my testimony again, but to the whole living group. And somehow God used my story to impact my co counselors life! DURING WEEK ONE! Seriously. That's just crazy. I was literally brought to tears as I heard that my pain influenced someone else's life for the better. Week one was just glorious and it made me so excited for what was to come this summer.

While working at Glisson was amazing, there were also some struggles. I remember there was one week where I truly struggled with comparing myself to others. I was doubting myself and I just really struggled with viewing myself as beautiful and wonderful as who God created me to be. But that night at chapel, we sang "Nothing I Hold On To" and as I sang the words: "I give it all to You God, trusting that You'll make something beautiful out of me" I truly sang it to the Lord and I gave Him my self esteem and truly believed I was wonderful in who He made me to be. Afterwards, I shared with my campers what I was struggling with and one of my campers came up to me and told me that I was beautiful and that I didn't need to compare myself to others, which was absolutely beautiful and I started bawling all over again.

Another big struggle of mine this summer was having a servant's heart. Throughout my time at camp, I was focused on myself. It wasn't until week eight that I realized that I needed to give up focus on myself. My job was to serve my campers, not me. I realized that I was too uptight and too strict about certain things and I was just worn out. Luckily though, I was able to take that information and use it for the glory of the Lord week nine. And week nine was one of my favorite weeks. It was so much fun and I truly learned about the joy of letting go and the joy of spending time with your campers. It was absolutely beautiful and I loved every second of it. 

Even though there were hard times this summer, the good moments and the beautiful moments of seeing your campers worship the God you love, it's literally breath taking. I honestly had campers of all ages this summer and each age group worshiped in different ways and it constantly amazed me at how much they believed at their age. I loved being able to worship in that chapel every night. It was absolutely beautiful. And I constantly grew in the Lord because of it. Working with so many different ages gave me so many different insights to how people lived their lives. It opened my eyes to so many things and I am honestly changed because of it. 

I honestly could not have been more blessed to work at Camp Glisson this summer. Jesus has fully restored me to who I was meant to be in Him and it definitely shined through this summer. I cannot wait to go back to school and continue to shine His light all throughout campus. I pray that He continues to make me new through everything I do. I could not be more blessed. God is so incredibly good and I thank Him every day for making me new.