Awake My Soul

Two things I haven't done in a LONG time:
My Projects
Blogging.

The first thing I will have to reluctantly say so long to. I cannot keep up with it. My 365 has been hard enough for me to handle.
The second I want to do more often. I just haven't been home.
I want to make this brief and effective...or affective. Sheesh I can never remember which one it is.

First let me tell you about my wonderful Texas trip.

On the way to Texas, I read a little pamphlet by Francis Schaeffer entitled "Art and the Bible". It was small, so I expected it to be just sort of good.
Oh man. Was I wrong.
If you are an artist or like art or if you hate art but breathe and live...READ IT.
It has so many spot on observations that any Christian can benefit from. I loved it. No I adored it. Also on the way up, we listened to a Mars Hill Radio thing about Beauty in art and how it seems to be declining. A philosophical discussion between my mom and I followed. It was great. Little did I know that God would drive this point the whole trip.
When we got to our old friends house we were staying at, I began talking with their son. About everything. And the theme that came up was how our lives could be a witness and a work of art. Which is something Mr. Francis talks about.
Later that weekend, I had a discussion with two other guys about art and the bible. No joke. God was making it completely evident that this was a lesson that I needed to learn and share.
So I came back from Texas ready to attack the school year with a new zeal for him...or so I thought.

Now I'm going to TRY to put my experience at Macon into words....TRY
Macon Mississippi is in the absolute middle of nowhere. It's hot. and it's spiritually dead. So I thought to myself, God's going to do so much through me bla bla bla. Little did I know that this would be the most humbling week of my life. I began the week a confident person who was able to speak in front of kids I didn't know. I ended the week a person who was trying to hold it all together and had red eyes from crying. All because I flippantly prayed to be "humbled". In hindsight, I realized that I just wanted to appear to be humbled so that people would say "wow, God humbled you" not so I would say "God help me. I need you." Granted, the camp itself was not as challenging as I had expected. But God made sure that the most stretching things would happen to me. I can easily say that I experienced the most drama I've EVER been involved in last week...and all of it I was kind of trapped in...and not exactly participating in. God made sure that I emptied myself day after day to the kids at the camp and to my own counselor without any positive results. He made sure that I was shut down a couple times when I tried to speak, that I was so confused that only tears would come, and that (this is the worst one of all) I was so frustrated I had to swallow my pride (oh horrors!). During all of this, the speaker was speaking on topics that applied to my life in that moment. I was told by Mr. Reif that God could do more than I was expecting and that He could truly use me and use me up.

Needless to say, I have been on a spiritual high for the last couple of days. But I pray it's not just another "mountain top experience". I pray it will last for the next week...or the next year.

What I learned can be summed up in these few points:
1. God is relevant and powerful and can do all things with all people. (Mr. Reif said "God doesn't need ability, He needs availability")
2. God's love is absolutely the single best thing that one could ever acquire. So why not share it without fear?
3. "Your biggest mission field is between your two feet" I can't remember who said that. But man, have I overlooked that or what. There are SO many things that I (or We as in the case of our youth or friends or etc.) can do IN Chattanooga. Chattanooga is great, but it has people who are struggling. People who need God.
4. This is the last thing...I am so thankful for my youth group. The people in it continue to surprise me and the leaders are loving and the best friends anyone can ask for. We spent the whole van ride home planning out the year. With our new theme "Wake up and get real!"...but that's a whole different blog post.

Thanks for reading if you read this far.
Goodnight. I pray that God shows how real He is to you someday soon.
Mary Em.