Work Crew August 2012

    It feels like it has been ages since my last post. My summer has been nothing short of hectic. I have graduated and moved out of my parents house. It is such a weird feeling, but I have great roommates that no doubt will make me a better person. It's hard to be away from Kelly also. Three hours is not extremely far, but nonetheless I don't like being away from her. But as long as we keep our trust in God, we will be alright. She is pushing me towards God in ways that I didn't know were possible. She has taught me so much about what I want in a relationship. I had no idea how great the conversation could be between a dating couple.
    Along with that, I have learned so much this summer. I have recently done Work Crew at Rockbridge for the third session. If you don't know what that is, I worked at a Younglife camp for two and a half weeks where I served and bussed tables. I never knew how tiring that could be! There, I worked alongside a group of fellow students all about my age. We didn't get paid, and we hardly got thanked. But that was not why we were doing it. We did that hard work so that camp would be perfect. Camp is such a fun time, especially when everything is clean and in place. This camp was very special, but only because all the campers got to hear the greatest news in eternity; The Cross of Jesus Christ.
    In living with the other workers, I learned so many things. I could talk about them for hours, but now I'm going to focus on just one thing. And that is the absolute need to stay in God's word. Before I went, my time reading and studying my bible looked very different. I would read a couple of verses up to a passage. But at Work Crew,  I was reading whole books! It was a stubble at first until I realized how much I needed that time to remain in God's will for me that day. I needed that "charge" of energy that it gave me. Energy that cannot be found in any drink or food. This strength and energy came from The Lord, and it got me through each day.
    I could have made it the first few days on my own. I am a hard enough worker to do that. But that's it, only a few days! I would have been grumpy and upset about fourteen hours of work followed by very little sleep. But with that time spent with Jesus, I learned to delight in my sufferings so that other people might understand what Jesus did on The Cross and I might share in Christ's blessings.
   I have found this to be the best two and a half weeks of my life. I have never grown so much in so little a time. And to that I give thanks and praise to God for guiding me through it every step of the way.

Colossians 1:29

²⁹ For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.