I have wanted to write this post for a while now and I have been working on it since I got home. Even in the middle of summer I wanted to sit down and just write about everything that was going on. It has been over two months since I arrived back on southern soil and I am still trying to sift through everything and figure out exactly the impact that working for a summer at JH Ranch had on me.
So, as I sit and try to put this summer into words, I am slightly overwhelmed. Where to begin? I experienced so much. During those three-ish months I was challenged in ways that I could have never anticipated. I was put in situations that I never thought I would find myself in. From leading ropes courses, to taking a group of 15 year olds into the wilderness, to learning a new job and working in the kitchen the last week- it was all unexpected and so humbling. The Lord took me deeper and spoke to me more than I thought He would. He surprised me. He revealed to me more of my heart and so, so much more of His heart.
I walked into this summer with my heart in a weird place. It walked in with it still enslaved- unaware of what freedom really was.
My heart was both shy and submissive at the beginning of summer. It was shy of grace- sure my heart knew was grace was, but it wasn't sure how to accept grace fully. It was submissive in the sense that it was submissive to itself- to its own ideas and its own plan. My heart was running the show and my mind didn't know how to escape.
These ridged rules made breathing hard and Truth small.
Until one day, I walked into a big white tent we like to call the "Big Top" and my heart couldn't keep up the walls anymore as freedom seeped in and all the hard things stored up went rushing out.
He showed me that His love had set me FREE, and He didn't die so that my heart would be sulky and enslaved to shame. He didn't die so that I could sit around and wonder what I supposed to be doing with my life. He didn't die for me to question His existence or mine. But He died so that my life would be full and so I could dance.
This summer was a time of re-learning. I was taught how to walk and talk differently. I learned how to see situations, myself, and others through the lens of God's eyes- full of mercy and full of grace. I finally understood that the law had enslaved me and showed me how imperfect I was, but that Jesus had let me go, let me out of my shackles, and showed me just how perfect He was.
I learned a little more about how vast His love is- and it enchants my heart, soul, and mind again everyday when I stop to think about it.
He taught me what joy is and transformed my heart to one with a desire to please Him out of love- not obey Him out of obligation. I learned that I have fear in my heart- but, more importantly- I learned how to lay that fear down at the foot of the cross and leave it there.
I think one of my favorite things I learned this summer is that He is for us. What does this mean?
This has been tricky for me to put into words. I think that it is like our parents (which makes sense because He is our Father) in that He wants what is best for us, but He also wants what we want. This is because He created us. He formed us and wrote things in our hearts a long time ago and those things that get are heart jumping and our soul excited are the things that He has written. I learned that I have desires for a reason.
I think I already knew this- it is something that I have been told over and over again, growing up in the church. But I think this summer my heart finally accepted it. My heart grasped what it meant for the Creator of the universe and my heavenly Father to be complexly for me, and with that my heart sighed a great sigh of relief.
I think that I realized that everything I want, He is going to give me. It might not look the way I want it to look- but that's okay because it will be a million times better than anything my small, human mind could have put into order. I realized that the Lord WANTS me to be happy, He wants to bless me, love of me, and provide richly for me. He isn't out to get me. He doesn't want the opposite of everything I want. He doesn't give me my second choice just to spite me and teach me a lesson. He gives me my first choice and then some.
Another one of my favorite things I learned this summer was a new song called For the Cross. There is a line in that song that says, "Hallelujah, it is finished".
Hallelujah. It is finished.
When I sit back and realize what these words mean, I realize a little more of God's love and freedom.
It is finished. No more striving, no more inadequacy, no more failure. The victory is His. It is finished. Those words have brought me more peace and more joy than I have had in a long time. I can rest assured that my future and salvation doesn't rest on my works- because I will always fail. I will always come up short, I will never be able to be perfect. But hallelujah, Jesus never fails. He never comes up short, He is forever perfect. And that is the lens I am seen through. I am seen through the lens of "it is finished"- she is complete. It is finished. Jesus has conquered death and won the war. Therefore, I can stand in victory.
I now live in a world where strivings have ceased and peace reigns.
Through all of this, as though it could get any better, the Lord blessed me with people. His children. My siblings. His love was, and is still, more tangible in my life because of the people He put in it this summer. They taught me more of what it meant to love people, more of what it meant to walk out my faith, more of what it meant to know that I am heard and loved and beautiful, more of what it meant to push and be pushed towards our Father. He used them to change my life through conversation and adventure and a common passion for Him.
This summer was beautiful, and my favorite summer yet. It was a complete reflection of what life with Him looks like- full, joyous, fun, beautiful, an adventure. Was it perfect? No, because I'm not perfect. Did the Lord use it for my good and His glory? Absolutely. That's called grace.
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