History Books Recall Me As...

So today is my day off from camp. We are in a two week session right now and either its against the law to work us 13 days straight or they fear our sanity, but we all get one day off between Wednesdays. Its been lovely thus far, I bought a yellow dress and made some pad thai and watched my friend spend over half an hour trying to figure out his water filter - and now he's pulling out knives with 8 inch blades.

Promising.

Now I am writing and it feels wonderful.

The more often I write the more often topics come to me. I find myself have random thoughts come into my head and start forming them into blog post. This one is expanding on undoubtedly my favorite topic of the semester, our stories. ("The ______ Story", "A Thought"). This thought started last weekend, or rather two weekends ago. My brain is on camp time.

I was riding with the same friend who has now moved on to figuring out his headphones (with extension he refused to ask the Best Buy people about) - starting the clock.

Sidebar. I do not currently have a car so shout out to the that friend who is super gracious and awesome about giving me rides. I cannot express my appreciation in anything beyond thank you (especially for the non-100 mile, 100 mile trip - you do over-exaggerate)

Anyway, we were talking about something I can't rightly recall, but he mentioned a past a acquaintance as the someone who "destroyed" him. That got me thinking about people in our past and the labels we give them. Some of them are basic, "my old teacher", "my ex-girlfriend", and some are awesome, "my greatest mentor" or "my favorite babysitter", and some are ones that no one wants to be ever, "the person who ruined my life" or "the one who destroyed me". It makes me wonder what labels I've left in peoples life and what labels I'm leaving now. Thus far in the year I have rocked the roles of: granddaughter, daughter, sister, sister-in-law, friend, employee, babysitter, student, counselor, teacher, peer, subordinate, leader, customer, member, passenger, lawbreaker (failure to reduce me speed. Yeah - good times) and so many others I don't have the brain power to recall, but you get the idea. Over half of those could occur in a single day to multiple people ( count the interactions that could occur in the first paragraph of "Reflections..."). Its almost frightening to imagine the vast array of labels that could be bestowed upon me.

My expansion on this thought occurred during Lifeline (evening devotions at my camp). My director was talking about what we can be known for (our pure and upright conduct) and he was asking the kids about some famous people they know of and why, then he said that he knows he will never do anything famous enough to get written into the history books. I almost jumped and asked "Who's history book?". In that split second of saying he wasn't going in any history books, my boss was already written into the history books of the 100 sets of ears that were listening to him. One hundred different history books, at one time, in one moment. I don't need to be in the books that are taught in school. I'm already in so many books, and I pray in a good way.

My third expansion on history books came just now.

If I am written into history books, do I really want that? It seems simple, but if I honestly believe that everything good in me is from God, doesn't that mean that I should want to disappear and leave only Him. It's the John 3:30 principle, "He must increase and I must decrease". If I desire God, I desire to disappear into the shadow of a greater good, a greater Love, a greater God.

Lord, I am in awe that You allow me to be Your hands and feet, Your ambassador. Continue to humble me. Continue to make myself disappear, leave only You. 

Final sidebar. The head phones took ten minutes to get straight. Bravo my friend.