On the spiritual side of life.

Yesterday was a frustrating and depressing day for me, and not really because of any direct event that occurred, but because of this pinching thorn in my side called jealousy. For those of you who don't know, I worked at summer camp last year, and thought that God had created that job specifically for me. i got paid to run around screaming, making crafts, and sharing the gospel with kids. Not only that, but I had an amazing staff to work with who quickly became like family to me. Well, yesterday was the first day of training for my camp friends, and I was so jealous that I couldn't do camp again. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Camp looked SO much better than my internship. I have friends or would definitely make friends at camp, here, I'm still not sure I'm anyone's friend, I would know exactly what I'm doing each day, here, I'm at the mercy of others to determine what I'll be doing.

The idea that absolutely killed me yesterday was this, Camp was straight up evangelism, asset mapping mentoring programs? not at all. I was furious that God would have me do this instead! I couldn't understand why God would use me last summer and show me that He can use me to reach out to kids, but stick me in an office with adults who are already Christians this summer.

After a very quite and slow dinner, I went up to my room and pulled out a special box. The box itself isn't anything special, it's an old Tevas shoe box with my name written on it in sharpie. it's what's inside the box that I treasure so much. Since freshman year of college, I've kept all the notes and letters and pictures people have given me. I pull them out and read them whenever I'm depressed or nostalgic.

I started reading some of them, and some of them had pretty powerful statements on them. Friends telling me that they know God's going to use me in amazing ways; I have tremendous gifts that I should use in as many ways as possible. I wanted to call those friends up and ask, "who the heck do you think I am?!?! I'm not that gifted, I don't think God's going to use me in amazing ways!"

I came across some others that told me that God will use me, if I only continue to submit humbly ; That the reasons for me being here, now, will be made clear if I pursue God with every ounce of my being. I thought, "Seriously, I'm sick of submitting to the unknown and the vague!"

That's when I felt more like a combination of Moses and Peter. I most certainly have not trusted that God will use the way he's created me to share His gospel of love with Miami, even though he 's proved his power to do this over and over to me. I've gone into the unknown before, keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus, but once I got to Miami, I looked away and fell in.

please pray for joy and contentment in my work. That God will let me see the fruits of my labor and the effects of that on the furthering of His Kingdom in Miami. It's not as familiar as camp, but that only forces me to trust God more to use me in miraculous ways.