middle school camp

I am officially out of food in my refrigerator and pantry.  This morning I'm having the simplest breakfast possible:  gluten-free toasted bread and two boiled eggs because there's simply nothing else to eat.  I was so tired last night, I forgot to make iced coffee and put it in the fridge to cold-brew overnight.  I mean, seriously... I forgot to make coffee.  And this last week, no joke, I wore the same shorts every day for five days straight.  And last night I slept for eight and a half hours and it was the most glorious thing ever.

Which begs the explanation to all this.  I give you three words:  middle school camp.

That's right, this past week I had the privilege of spending five epic days with a bunch of middle school girls since my church, along with six other churches in the St. Louis area, got together and put on this camp for the middle school kids in their congregations, with yours truly along for the ride as a counselor.  In all honesty, it really was very good.  We bonded a lot and the girls bonded a lot amongst themselves, which is what myself and the other leaders wanted to see.  And let me just tell you:  my girls had questions.  Lots of questions.  Serious questions.  The speaker talked a lot about the story of Jacob throughout the week... about Jacob's relationships with Laban and Rachel and Leah, but mostly about how Jacob wrestled with God.  We talked about how we wrestle with God in our lives -- intellectually, emotionally, and the performance mentality that many kids grow up with in the church (i.e. I grew up as a Christian, therefore I'm expected to go to church, read my Bible, and pray in order to be ok with God).  They think that they have a relationship with God because their parents do and because they go to church, when in reality all they're doing is conforming to a list of expectations.  But the speaker really wanted to encourage them to learn how to make their faith their own.  Most of the girls in my group had really deep, intellectual questions... we went on crazy digressions during our small group time.  We talked about things like predestination and unconditional love and the character of God and how when Jacob wrestled with God, it was similar to Jesus wrestling with God in the Garden of Gethsemane and what that means in terms of our Savior being able to identify with us and why it's ok to wrestle with God and how that's actually a really important part of your walk with him.  And the great thing is... they got it.  They had lightbulbs going off left and right and it was awesome.
  
A lot of other things happened this week too:  one of my girls had a serious problem with a certain instance where I exerted my authority (in her best interest of course) the last day or two, I was offered an internship at my church to work with student ministry, and I found one of my long-lost friends from Mizzou who literally lives down the street from me now and goes to the church I run past on my running route (six months I've been here and never knew...).  Needless to say, it was an eventful week and I now remember why I disliked that season of my life so much when I was that age.  There was actually a girl in my group who was very much like me when I was her age... one who won't grow into herself until she's 25 or 30.  But the kids need people to come alongside and mentor them.  And I am happy to do it in small doses.

So of course, after such an epic week, the first thing I did when I got home yesterday was take a nap and go see Othello with John and Megan in Forest Park.  Right?  An epic ending to an epic week.  With wine.

And so now I am home and seriously ready to recooperate.  Today will be a quiet catch-up day, thankfully.  I'll start practicing again on Monday.

And I declined the internship.  Because, you know, I'm a pianist.  And as much as I love working with the kids, I definitely feel called to my work as a musician.  And I would really miss it if I sort of made a hard left in my career path suddenly.  Ironically, one of the morning seminars this week was on story... i.e. what makes a good story and the story of your life and how we co-author it with God.  We also talked about names and how God renamed certain characters in the Bible (like Jacob) as they walked through their story, and how ultimately he will rename us one day too (Rev 2:17), which made me think a lot about my name and my story.  And I'm still trying to figure out what exactly my name means in terms of my story (and vice versa)... there is a lot that will yet be revealed.  But I definitely know what I'm not, which is ministry in the traditional sense.  If I were meant for that, I would've been a man and my parents would have named me after three of the most famous theologians / writers / pastors in the church (Calvin Bunyan Spurgeon Smith would have been my name).  But my mom didn't want her child named that.  And so she prayed for a girl.  And God evidently agreed :)