restoration

I was talking yesterday with a boy in my major about how often God puts us in situations we could never dream possible to remind us that we could never have gotten there on our own. I've seen multiple moments in the past week of my life where He has reminded me that I can't, but He absolutely fully can.

Last Tuesday as Sarah was speaking at bcm I literally said to myself: "Lord, I could never speak at Gathering. I just couldn't." ...and you know what I did last night? Spoke at Gathering. And it was slightly terrifying but the Lord spoke and he reminded me that He can use us even when we seem the least able to be used. I talked about how "Love is Here" and that could not reign more true in my own life right now.

But an even bigger blessing than that has happened in my life this week. A few of them actually.

I had an old friendship that ended a few months ago and to be honest it's one that I considered lost. There was too much hurt, too much involved, and I had just counted it as the one thing in my life that I was okay with being that way. We may be called to live at peace with everyone but so long as this continued to get shut out of my mind, it was no big deal that there was a broken piece of me. But guess what? God continues to be bigger than that.

I didn't ask for it, I didn't seek it out, and I didn't realize the magnitude of how deeply I needed restoration in this piece of my life. The Lord brought this person back into my life unexpectedly and cleared up a lot of miscommunications and brought a lot of healing to my soul. Friend, I know you read my blogs and confession-- I often write them in hopes that you will. So this is my way of saying thank you. I realize there was a lot more you could have said but it meant to the world to me to just have you listen, reaffirm, clear up, and somewhat mend the broken pieces. This day had a lot of potential to get messy but thank you for putting yourself aside to just hear my heartbeat. Thank you for being patient and thank you for being the sweet and wonderful person that I've always known you to be.

Amazing how God restored the one piece of my life I counted as loss before I headed out to serve kids this weekend. After talking to my good friend Daniel last weekend, I realized my heart was had not been where it needed to be lately. So he and I set out at the beginning of the week to pray over every aspect of the FCA retreat we went to lead this weekend and I cannot vocalize the implications that prayer had in my personal life and the life of tons of kids. I haven't felt so free and alive in months and my prayer was answered that I was able to fully give of myself to my girls this weekend. And you know what? I saw incredible things happen.

I could see something stirring in the eyes of my most quiet, shy girls and on the last night we sat outside a cabin in the shaking cold and she gave her life to Christ. I cannot express the joys and the frozen tears of that moment and I may never forget that beautiful revelation on her face.

I had an incredible conversation with a tiny (she really was tiny.) seventh grade girl who has more passion for girls ministry and inspiring people to live pure lives than I could ever have dreamed in seeing in someone so young. That is a huge passion of mine and what a blessing to find it in her!

I was so touched by what the Lord did through Daniel this weekend in the life of his kids, especially an incredible boy named Jack. It always amazes me how Daniel finds such Godly potential in kids-- it's an encouragement and a blessing. Check out his blog to hear more about his weekend.

One of the most touching things to me was Cabin K, a cabin of big, football playing high school boys who had a life changing weekend. I cried hearing them talk about the community built among them and how they all gained or restored their walks with Christ this weekend. I loved seeing those boys from my high school get it and knowing they will go back and live it in a difficult place.


I could ramble on now forever about the ways I have met the Lord this week but the point of it is that it's amazing when we get ourselves where we need to be with the Lord where He will take us. It's true, I could not have accomplished anything on my own, but hey... we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.