A Camera-less Photograph

I wish I could take a picture. It's so beautiful I may cry.

But my camera battery is dead and even so its not just the image that I want to recall, it's the sound, the way it feels, all the senses. Cameras can't do that and memories come up patchy, but even a patchy memory is better than none at all.

So as I lie in the hammock in the middle of woods, with Katlyn in her hammock a foot and a half away,  I force myself to look deeper. Why is beautiful and why do I want to cry? What makes this moment more remarkable than any other?

It's the way the breeze blows softly over my face and slides smoothly under the hammock.

It's the way Katlyn pulls on my hand to try and get our hammocks swinging.

It's Mallory's burst of laughter from the tarps as Bailey asks another ridiculous question during their game of "Would you rather?".

It's the way the trees all come to point above my head, like all of the woods are bending down to cover us.

It's the near-blinding light of the moon pushing through the trees. God's all mighty night light casting brilliant shadows over the dips and rises of the forest floor.

It's the muscles in my stomach contracting as the laughter rolls up from the lungs and pushes my jaw far to open.

It's the feeling of lying open under the sky.

It's satisfaction.

It's freedom.

It's the feeling of grace, pulsing, pushing, pulling, yanking, tugging, and surrounding my heart, filling my eyes, swelling up from the bottom of toes to radiate from the top of my head. I shouldn't be allowed to abide in this. To have the privilege of being able to go outside, under the gray sky, and the silver/white clouds. To see clearly the ridges and movement of the earth that has not yet been allowed to rest in darkness.

Katlyn and I look up at the sky and consider the moon. The moon has no light of it's own, it is purely a reflection of the sun, so in that respect, the sun never leaves. The same rays that warm an Indonesian beach are reflecting down through the trees of the North Georgia mountains.

The moon and stars are instruments of Grace, that even in the dark, the woods, in the places that we fear, God has not hidden His light. There it is, reflecting the sun on the other side of the world. There they are, huge gaseous forms that are light years away.  How could this ever be bad? Even when the scorpions surround you and the cold sweeps in, we still rest in a well-lit pocket of grace.

It's so beautiful I may cry.

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Chacos and Chicos

Every year, when the sun starts to stay warm and I start wearing less sweaters and more t-shirts and start replacing my winter footwear (boots...I love them) with my summer footwear. (Yes, I mostly only wear four different shoes, two different kinds of boots, a pair of knock-off converse, and my chacos...and regardless of what the more fashionable may say, these shoes do go with everything.)

When I pull my chacos from the bottom of the shoe basket they always feel a little stiff. I have to work with the straps for a few days or weeks to get them back to the place where I can slip them on without thinking about it. But I do it every year, because these shoes take me everywhere and more so they remind me of...you guessed it, camp.

This summer as I came down to camp I spent the first few days catching up with people that I have known before, some of them for years, and one night as I lay in bed I got to thinking that relationships are like chacos.

Okay, I know that is a terrible metaphor, feel free to roll your eyes, I am. Have we moved past it? Good, continuing on.

When I see someone that I have a friendship with but I have not been around for a while there is a certain adjustment period that takes place.

I have to get back into the groove of the friendship, and catch up with all the change and growth that has happened. I have to find the "stiff" parts of our relationship and work on them until they are back to being carefree as they once were.

I love this process. I think working at camp has given me opportunity to grow an appreciation of the absence of relationships. That old adage, "Absence makes the heart grows fonder is true." Not just because you suddenly see what matters when it's missing, but because absence brings the opportunity for reconnection. When you go 6 months or a year or two without seeing someone you are forced to look and reconnect with that person. To see them in the light of all the growth and change that both of you have gone through.

There is a certain beauty in the idea and an excitement in the process. I am here at camp working back into my relationships with past staff (some take more work than others) and everyday my task gets easier. More so, everyday, I get to work on the formation of new relationships that I will leave and be united with later on and the process can expand and start over again.

I am thankful for absence, because of the opportunity to grow. Not just myself, but my relationships.

Sidebar: Google chrome is convinced that "chacos" is not a real word. The squiggly red lines are bothering me.

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The Hour Has Come.

Nine and a half hours.

This is when Strong Rock Camp's 2012 Staff Week officially begins.

I have been at camp for a week now and it's been fantastic not only prepping for my job as a leader of the girls counselor team, but in getting to know members of that team and the team as a whole.

I like to think I have seen a glimpse ahead into the summer with these hours spent with at least part of the staff, but I don't want to. People don't need me to imagine what will happen, we'll see it soon enough. What I do want to do is look at each person and the summer as a whole in a certain way.

The seventeenth chapter of John is made up entirely of a prayer of Jesus. A prayer to His father, about us.

He prays mostly for our courage and unity in the face of world that will hate us.

Now I have never gotten much flack for working at a summer camp, Christian or not, but what I have gotten is attacks from the god of the age. Camp, or at the very least this one (I've not gone deep in any other's I'm just assuming) is a near constant battle between the powers of darkness and the light of Christ.

I take away a couple things from John 17 this morning.

Number One: Stay in the word.

"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth." -John 17:17

Number Two: A huge desire of God is for our unity.

There is an entire chapter of the bible devoted solely to God praying for our unity. Surely I could donate a chunk of my time to doing the same. This camp does nothing great outside of Christ.

Number Three: God prayed for us.

Ruminate on that one.

The summer is here. We are about to dive into over nine weeks of battle, and we get to say that over two thousand years ago, even Jesus was praying for our work and unity.

Let's Go.

"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me...Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world."  -John 17: 20-21,24

Wonderful Morning

⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.Heirs with Christ¹² So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ¹³ For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ Foryou did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶  The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.     -Romans 8: 5-17

The Spirit dwells in me.The Spirit of God dwells in me. God dwells in me. God in me.

God.

Who created life with a free will, able to choose between Himself and a perfect life and a life of death and destruction.

God.

Who pursued the people who chose destruction to the point of dying Himself.

God.

Who was not satisfied in dying to pay for our sins, so He raised Jesus from the dead to give us a legacy of life abundantly that we continually throw away.

God.

Who feeds thousands with a loaf of bread, converts the lost with one encounter, created the rain cycle, the ecosystem, the perfect balance of creation.

This God abides, pursues, forgives and instructs me. Relentlessly.

"If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 

if we endure, we will also reign with him; 

if we deny him, he also will deny us; 

if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

because He can not deny Himself." 

  2 Timothy 2:12-13

Words, and No Worries.

In less than 24 hours I will be (more or less) settling into my home at Strong Rock Camp.

This is the place that I have given every summer to since my 17th birthday. I could not be more excited.

One thing that I have learned though, is that the summers do not get easier as you go. Well, I suppose in some sense they do, I no longer worry much about keeping up with schedules or knowing what is going on. After four years in two different positions I have a basic grasp in almost every area of keeping a summer day going. (I say almost because I can not even touch the business side or the maintenance side...step by step assistance is the best I can offer there). Still, I know where most things are, and how to operate the camp vehicles, I can change the paper towels, operate the deep frier and have the schedule of a summer day imprinted in the back of my head. But having all that down gives opportunity to focus out.

This summer I am switching to my third role in my Strong Rock history, head counselor. Or rather Women's Head Counselor...I will happily leave leading the men to Mr. T-Wade.

My focus in now not on the schedule but has increasingly become a focus on God alone. Which is completely in line with camp philosophy, but is also hard to achieve while simultaneously trying to learn the job and keep 10 or more campers alive and happy.

This began last year, my journey to abandon work priority (read some posts from last summer here, here and here) and God did a great work in me. I'm excited to see what He has for me this year. Especially since He seems to be giving me a sneak peak.

As I have prepped, studied, reflected and prayed this week there are two words that keep popping up: Intentional and Grace (grace filled, grace-hearted etc).

You can read here, from last week about my struggle with apathy. The word "intentional" kept popping up in sentences like, "intentionally pursue God daily" and "intentionally pursue relationships with each woman I am charged with leading" and "intentionally pour out compassion and consideration on the staff". I was sharing this with Mom and she pointed out that "intentional" is the opposite of "apathy". This is something I hope to see grow and foster within me.

The second is "grace". I recently looked to my bookshelf for a good read and saw my Mom's book, "One Thousand Gifts" that she had loaned me, very excited for me to read it, over a year ago. I picked it up and am an immediate fan. The whole concept is living large right where you are, where God has placed you and not constantly looking and dreaming for something more. Being surround and saturated in gratefulness and the knowledge of the grace of God. Worship and gratitude are too often lost on me.

I will end this post with a piece of wisdom that my little sister just shared (in another example of these topics popping up). It is Psalm 86:11.

"Teach me your way, O Lord,    that I may walk in your truth;     unite my heart to fear your name."

Sarah told me that she thought this was cool so she looked down in her notes and read that "unite my heart" means to unify it, or make it after one thing, glorifying the name of God. This is my prayer above all else, for the summer and the rest of my wide-open and oh-so-uncertain life.

Speaking of gratitude, let me just drop one out and say, "Thank you so much Lord for planning my life! I have to capability to do it myself!"

Next time I write....I will be chilling in the SRC.


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A Basis of Awesome-ness.

So maybe this is late by a day or two, but I thought I'd write a quick bit on mothers.

Okay, mostly about mine (it's where I get most of my info after all).

First off– I hold the opinion that my Mom is something of a super-mom. She raised all five of my siblings and I and in my opinion, we are all pretty good kids/now adults and almost aldults (youngest of us is 18). We seem to have a balance of love and care and sense of self-responsibility. We most all seem to have a great respect for the council of our parents, but at the same time feel the freedom to think analytically about what they say as well as others. This all comes from parents.


Every time I work with a family and the kids are whiny or bossy or know-it-alls I never take it out on the kids, because it's not the kids that raised themselves to be that way.

I appreciate the way my parents, or for the topic of this post, my mom, raised me. And this post is just the short of it. I could write volumes.

She has given me a desire to grow. 

From a young age I watched her study and wrestle with her relationship with God. I watched her light up when she learned anything new from any topic. I saw take steps to expand her knowledge and her perspective. Curiosity. Wonder. Confidence. Willingness to be taught. I love this about my mom and I love that I see it each of us to some capacity.

She has taught me that sometimes you have to just go with it.

I remember hearing from older siblings that my mom was strict about her time. This is true to a certain extent. She doesn't often have a lot of time so care needs to be taken in planning it, but when something disrupts her she will look at it for a bit then adjust. When things happen that you can't help, you can sit and wallow in your lost plan, or you can adjust and move on.

She has taught me hospitality.

People have always been in and out of our house. Once we had a family with something like 8 kids stay a few days with us. I had no idea how we knew them, but I think they were a friend of a friend who was passing through the area and needed cheap lodging. She always said that our things were not ours but God's, gifts on our life, so she had no right to be selfish. We've had more than one couple live with us for months at a time, an exchange student. Our Thanksgivings have reached almost forty guests. At one point to she hosted the Christmas party for her entire church choir managing a sit down dinner for around sixty. You don't grow up with this, without gaining a few pointers...however poorly executed : )

She taught me practical Grace.

Over the course of my life I have seen her interact with more "difficult" people with more kindness and love than should possible. Whether is was someone with special needs, or someone who was just obnoxious, she treats them with the same respect and grace as another person she interacts with. She is forever humanizing the people the world wants us to degrade to personality traits (i.e. "jerk", "retarded", "disabled", "_______") and never talks bad about them later, the worst I've heard was her saying something like, "it was difficult talking to them" or "pray for me dealing with this person, they just drain me". Every time I have trouble with someone I remind myself to try and see them through my mom's eyes. Because they have shown me a picture of God's grace.

These are not just biased opinions either. My mom teaches parenting classes at the local Women's center. The young mom's she works with communicate their high view of my mom's grace and wisdom. "Debbie Gray said...." is a sort of law on some level. Its gets almost comical to the point of if they handle their child in a certain way when I or one of my sisters are around they say, "Don't tell your mom I just did that." I'm not sure she has ever met a person who could not love her, because she so clearly loves and cares for everyone she meets. I had a friend text me to tell my Mom "Happy Mothers Day" yesterday. She had met her once (though this example speaks of greatness on both characters).

What is the basis of this level of awesome-ness? That is the best part...not my mom. She has never in her whole life that I can remember taken credit for anything great she has done. If I tell her she's a great mom, more times or not she will tell me that God's been working with her a lot, or that she knows I'll be even better than her. She will tell me her faults (like anger...she told me at age eight that God was working with her on her temper and she was sorry she had lashed out...come on!) she will tell me some of her struggles, she will share with me what she's learning or what she has learned, and she will always encourage me that her grace and peace and love and all the other attributes I see have come from giving her life every day to God.

I literally can not imagine being blessed any further by a mother. I can not express my gratitude.

ps. Mom- you joked about wanting to be on blog one day...how's this?

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I'm a Fanatic–or Indescribably Honored.

Part of what I've been doing at home this past week is preparing for my job this summer at camp. Part of that has been switching to just listening to 'Jesus music'. I compiled a lengthy playlist that I play whenever I am doing other work. 

The compilation song, "Fanatics" by Lecrae and 116 Clique keeps coming up. (Its not on shuffle, I'm listening in alphabetical order and I keep forgetting where I stopped). This song has got me thinking. 

The end of the second verse says:

We ain't crazy we just understand the truth and we burdenedThe world sees us as evangelical ChristiansAs narrow-minded fanatics with a mythical missionLabeled extremists for sharing out faithBut thats cool, we can carry the weight of persecutionCuz earth is losingAnd if we yelling the truthWe honored to be the people that our God is usingSo keep it movingCuz if we yelling the truthWe honored to be the people that our God is using

The last lines, "We honored to be the people that our God is using" strikes me every time.

I see me. I see the ways I fail and the ways I succeed (not all of them, but a basic level). I see enough to know that any true success is by God's grace. I see enough to know that I'm not white as snow. But still God lets me live under His name, even when I mis-represent it.

I think this is something that is lost on me often. Let me try and spell it out (briefly, no deep theology).

In the Garden, Adam and Eve led the charge on the fall of man. God knew it was going to happen. By His grace He let it happen.

I say "by His Grace" because of this next part.

Because we chose to stray from God, He could no longer accept us without contradicting His Holiness (He is above sin, and everything bad and evil). If He had contradicted his nature and made the exception to take us sin and all, we would have no reason to serve Him, because he wouldn't be God.

But God loves us way too much to be separated from us for eternity so He starts this thousands and thousands of years long plan to redeem us. The completion of this plan is Jesus.

"But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many." -Romans 5:15

Jesus came not only to save us and restore us to a right relationship with God, but to establish the church. The body of believers who with a knowledge of the living God have been charged with the spreading of the life giving news. God has called each member individually. He gives them each life, and a story. He pursues each of us passionately.

God, created the world and made millions of organism work in perfect synchronization to sustain life on this planet. He set forth a thousands of years long plan to redeem a people that chose to leave Him in the first place, because He so desired personal relationships with each and every person ever to be created.

And I brush that off?

God called me. Pursued me. Relentlessly calls me back to Him every time I am blinded by the god of the age. Every time I start to pursue other lovers and can not catch them, He welcomes me back. (Hosea 2)

The Grace that surrounds my life is immeasurable.

And beyond all this God wants me to be an agent of His message.

WHAT?!

Imagine for the sake of this word picture (bear with me–we all know people like this) you are a die-hard Harry Potter fan. You love the books, the stories, J.K Rowling is a hero of yours and she comes up to your house (because she took the time to meet you where you are) and says, "I want you to write my surprise eighth Harry Potter book. I'll tell you the words you just write them down. Then you can share in all the fans, the riches and the rewards of the book. The only thing you have to do is follow me around and write exactly what I tell you." (Imagine the face of your favorite Potter-fan....its ecstatic).

God has done this for us times 1,000,000,00.

Not only has He pursued us and met us where we are and gave us this invitation to follow Him and have the richness of His blessings, He wants us involved in His work. He wants us to be an active member in the salvation of the world. Why in the heck would God want me for that?

In this agreement I get to live with God and the family of Christ for eternity. I get a life beyond my imagination and on top of that, joy, love, peace beyond any sort of measurement. I get to be associated with the savior of the world, more so I get to be called His child, Jesus's sister. I get a family bigger than I could imagine. I get a never ending Grace.

God gets an unfaithful child, who continually ignores His commands, tries to take over, starts following other people, and spends astonishing amounts of time in ungrateful silence.

We (or at least I) am the ultimate angsty teenager. The kind stereotyped in countless movies. The kind that mom's talk about with other mom's trying to ease the pain of raising someone so hateful.

And for all that, I have been given the privilege of living under the banner of God and representing Him to a dying world.

That is foundation shattering, heart-breaking, mind blowing, HONOR.

This Road That We Travel...

My first ever photoblog post to communicate the end of my time at UNCG.

Friends. 

Saying Goodbye to my job. (Tuesday)

Last Hoorah with my Roommate (Wednesday).

Packing. (With Tonisha)

Graduating! (Thursday).

Driving Home (Saturday).

Thanks for reading/looking or whatever you do in a photoblog. I may get on and write actual words later.