Last summer I was blessed with the opportunity to serve on the summer staff at Timber Wolf Lake in Michigan. Three weeks of rowdiness with Young Life kiddos as the craft cart girl – a job I never thought I would have, let alone succeed at.
Once there, one of the first questions we were asked as a retail family was, “What made you want to give up almost a month of your summer?” I answered as truthfully as I could, trying not to sound like a 7-year-old in Sunday school. “Honestly, being here isn’t a sacrifice. This is me getting my summer back.”
The summer had been a tough one, and though I trusted the hold as much as I could in the midst of rebuilding my independence, I was ready for a joyous escape to the green grasses of a place that has always been closer to Heaven for me. I was excited to get there, to see old friends from work crew and to rejoice with Jesus, but for the most part, I was in a place in my life where I knew I just needed to feel hearts beating around me.
The people quickly became every puzzle piece I could ever imagine the Lord being broken into. So in tune with sin, so in tune with suffering, so in tune with joy, so in tune with The Word. The theme of my summer staff experience struck me within the first three days, and I knew (to an extent) that it would be an uphill battle.
When I found out I was the craft cart girl, I couldn’t really breathe.
Comparison is the thief of joy, they say, and I agree completely. I immediately had this picture in my head of a zillion craft cart girls with sparkles in their eyes and flowers in their hair and that has never been me. I understand it sounds silly, and it sounds like something very small when other summer staffer’s have children’s lives in their hands at their jobs everyday, but to me this wasn’t about being good at a job; this was about being good at relationships. I would not have said at that time that I was even in the realm of “good at relationships,” though God had a plan to teach me otherwise. People fed into me immediately; people who really didn’t know anything about me. It was kind of incredible.
I think I had only ever been fed lies about myself. Lies about how cold and hard my heart was; how I let myself get walked all over and walked all over everyone else because I just didn’t have a heart at all, but this was everything opposite of that. These sweet, sweet people came to me like crashing waves exactly when I needed to be swept to sea. My summer staff friends, and the little nuggets who came back to my craft cart every single day, had no idea how much Jesus was working through them. They fed me the truth of Jesus that I’d been trying to believe for so long.
That month I will never forget because what it really taught me was that I truly and miraculously am not who I was. Not only that, but I’ve become a people protector; a person who breaks for people I don’t know and hearts I can’t save on my own; a person with a soft heart that is not only enjoyable to be around, but desirable, too.
How sweet it is that the Lord continues to make me stronger in my weakness.
Our God is a God who loves us despite our pasts and I fully believe His heart breaks every time we pit ourselves against the lies we’re fed. I don’t know how many times we have to be told that our pasts don’t define us to finally cast aside the lies we’ve always been told. I don’t know how many times we have to be told that our Lord has hope that surpasses our doubts to know that He will carry us further than we can walk on our own. Each of us has a past; each of us has felt unworthy and unwanted. We could be sadly satisfied with that, but I have always been someone who believes that people can change, and I now understand that there is freedom in believing it about ourselves.
“No longer tossed around by the winds of deceit.” Ephesians 4:14-16
