Pulling Out The Stitches

Last week, I got away from it all. Away from the noise, the rush, the stress of life. The last hurrah of the summer--the Student Leader Camping Trip. Nothing but me, the people I love, and God's creation for miles. And it was amazing.

Most of my summers are crazy, packed full of events, trips, and performances. This summer was the craziest so far--I barely had a week to myself before it was time to get ready for the next big thing. But the camping trip slowed me down, made me stop, relax, think. After two and a half months of craziness, I was so ready to get away from everything.

Now, you might say that spending a week with twenty weird (and I mean really weird) teenagers doesn't sound very relaxing, but the truth is, being with my friends is what relaxes me the most. It's what puts everything into focus. Makes it all clear. We can be some of the strangest people you've ever met, but through it all, we're just happy... and content.

When I'm with the people I love, I am at peace with the world--and that's what happened at Cloud Lake a week ago. I was at peace.

I had been dealing with my own struggles, and I was getting so tired by the time the Student Leader Camping Trip rolled around. But God knew exactly what I needed--rest. And so He timed it perfectly so I could go camping with all of my friends for a week--because He's awesome like that.

I needed to heal. I'm not saying that I had some big thing in my life happen that was super hard or anything, I just needed to be put back together. So as I sat in God's creation, I laid down all my stress, problems, struggles, and failures and just let God heal me.

Too often do we take for granted this blessing we have--to rest, to be still in God's presence and have Him make us whole again. We're too busy, too stressed to worry about anything but the next appointment. All the while, God is trying to heal us, revive us, but we won't stop moving. Our savior is sewing us back together, and we're pulling out the stitches.

So I challenge you--be still. Let God recharge you, heal you, put you back together again. Only then will you be able to look at the stress, the problems, and the failures with a mind focused on Him.