God truly knows our hearts. He knows what we need just when we need it. He knows our thoughts, our emotions, our struggles, our weaknesses, our strengths, literally everything. And when we trust in Him, He will take the path that we have chosen and make it glorious and use us to glorify His kingdom.
I've been shown this in an incredible spectrum this summer. Especially two weeks ago. Three weeks ago was a struggle for me just because of how homesick I was yet again. But God knew just what I needed in order to be a vessel for Him, an answer to my prayers, as well as just what I needed to become joyful in my last couple weeks up here. Three weeks ago I didn't have a camper. Instead, I was on something called relief which means that I took campers on the days their counselor had off. So it was different and I learned how important that one to one relationship in camp can be! That week was a little dull and impersonal, but like I mentioned, God is the ultimate healer.
Last week I didn't consider my camper a camper. She's a new friend to me. I've reaffirmed that God works in such mysterious yet beautiful ways. My new friend has an incredible story…full of testimonies an eighteen year old woman should never have to tell. What blows my mind even more about her is how much faith she has compared to what she's been through in her life. But what truly gets me…and has been a reminder of how real and living God truly is, is the fact that she's never had a Bible and can't read yet has one of the most personal relationships with God that I've ever encountered. God brought her here last week to get through some things in her life that have been exasperating in hopes to grow spiritually. What I realized about her was that she knows God, but not about God. Well, let me tell you, God also put the two of us together for many reasons. I'm so blessed to have had the opportunity to meet her and the talks that we've had to encourage each other and lift each other up.
Mid-week she really wanted to leave because she felt out of place as a result of a lack of campers to relate to. She just wasn't having the kind of time she expected. She ended up calling home and receiving some pretty intense news which just ended up being one more reason why God brought her here. The news she received and the reason why I am her counselor this week perfectly lined up. I have no doubt God knew exactly what He was doing.
I have never so easily shared Truth with someone like I did last week. I just entrusted that God would work through my actions and words and I have to say that God completely intervened. My camper made a one-hundred and eighty degree turn around in her perspective about camp. She went from wanting to leave before the week was over to wanting to come back next year for a longer time! She even admitted the night before how much she was going to miss camp and how much at home and peaceful it felt to be here.
You see, God is so evident when we just lay back and let Him do His thing. I can not express the way God uses us when we are open to Him and are open with Him about our desires. He listens. When our desires are opportunities for His kingdom to be glorified, I'm almost positive He will never oppose. Our Father will provide us with such opportunities on His time.
One thing I realized last week however, is how truly important knowledge of His word is. To keep our thoughts and minds in His direction. His word is surely not dead. The importance of scripture has never been so clear to me until this summer. In order to be an efficient encourager as a servant of God the way I desire, I need to study his Living and Breathing word in order to have Biblical truth to always relate to whatever life seems to throw at us. Not just a verse here or there but the whole background and full Biblical stories because single verses are only a piece of the full pie. A piece can be beneficial but think about how much more fulfilled we can be when we have the whole pie!
autism spectrum. He had all kinds of perks that at first I struggled to see as good things. For instance, he only listened
when he really wanted to. But as time went by I really noticed that at times he was just kind of in his own little world and most likely didn’t acknowledge me because he truly didn’t hear me.
What I had to do was actually go to him and gently grab his face to look at mine and then talk to him to truly get his attention. He also had a fear of bugs in general. If he saw one, he would
scream and flail his arms and sometimes run in circles or to someone to be comforted. This was actually really funny at times even though I had to hold my laughter only because we would be
peacefully sitting and all of the sudden he would stomp his foot and scream “ahh shoo fly get..get out of here…..don’tttt do that..!!!” I used this fear at times to get him to not go a certain
way I would say “don’t go that way, there’s a lot of bugs!” it worked! He was just really funny. He would also love club cars and run after them or towards them to hop on and just sit which at
times were a huge distraction when we were on our way to something. He had a very short attention span and there were times where I could read on his face while we were sitting with the group
when he just about to get up and start dancing or yelling something really loud. When I noticed this I would just get his attention and say don’t even think about it and he would give me a large
smirk. He loved toy story especially the third one and would also talk about doodleberries a lot which I have yet to figure out what those are!
As I was thinking yesterday walking around watching my
camper giving him a little time to himself the thought popped through my mind that I had just experienced a little week in the life of a parent with a child who has autism. It’s not easy. This
disability in particular causes an individual to be in their own world in a sense and a lot of times are stubborn in their decision; ‘set in their ways’ if you will and in order to do what you
need them to, sometimes you have to make your way look better than theirs. This can be a tedious and loud process especially if the child truly doesn’t like what you want them to do. I had the
blessing to be surrounded by people who understood that this child had a disability and were slightly more accepting of his shrill disobedience. But if I had been in the middle of the city with
this child and he decided to throw one of his tantrums while sitting down in a restaurant because a fly comes near his food, I’m not quite sure how I would feel with the turning heads and
judgmental eyes. I can only imagine.
met. She doesn’t try to be though. She just is and she makes everyone laugh without even realizing it. Just some things she
did...she would always randomly yell ‘BOO’ to everybody and of course not really scared I’d scream and she would CRACK UP! Not just laugh but literally crack up and be like ‘I scared you’...’I
got you.’ Then other times she would say…’so how long you been here?’ or ‘so you had a good time today?’ or ‘so what’d you do yesterday/today?’ I probably answered those questions, no lie about
forty times in the span of one week. I usually would answer the question fully about half the time and then the other half I’d just be like I did the same thing you did or say I went to
breakfast, lunch, than dinner and then I went to bed! What tickled me the most is she would always be most amazed with the last thing I’d say so when I told her I went to bed she’d reply with a
huge “WHAT? You went to beeedd? Wow...I never did that before, I didn’t know thattt!” 
I cannot reiterate enough how God uses times of
struggle to improve our lives. I’ve said it so many times but I will never stop saying it, look forward to struggles. They are so important to our spiritual growth and maturity.
One day though with this camper I was walking to the
bathroom with her and asked her about her church that she goes to. I asked what she learns at church and she said, “I don’t know.” So I started talking to her about God and how He made her and
that He had a son that took away all the bad things she did and will ever do and he loves her more than anyone on this earth…even more than Chris Brown. Throughout my attempt of teaching, I asked
her if she understood that and she was like…”huh?” She never seemed to truly understand who God and Jesus are. Which was extremely hard for me because that’s all I wanted her to get out of this
week. That Jesus loves her. I can only hope, knowing that our God is full of mercy and unconditional love that if He creates somebody that doesn’t have the capacity to grasp who He is, that He
will accept them into His kingdom. It’s just like a small child losing their life too soon in our eyes, and knowing that they never cognitively had a chance to understand and have a relationship
with Jesus.
loved swimming. Although, she could have nothing by mouth and was fed through a g-tube so I had to be super careful that no
water from the pool got to her face. But the joy she got out of just floating around in the water warmed my heart for those couple hours we had in the week. The last night however, we had to fill
out evaluations sheets with our campers. So I would ask her the questions hoping she would use the yes and no signals and she did for the most part. One of the questions was, would you like to
return to camp next summer. And at first she was hesitant and then I was like you can be honest! She said ‘no’. This didn’t surprise me honestly just because of how the week fell into play but as
this settled deeper in, it really hit me hard and I ended up breaking down later that night. I took this so personally, like it was my fault she didn’t want to return. But as I kept thinking back
on the week, there was really absolutely nothing else I could have personally done to improve her week, I did everything in my power to make her week special and everything that didn’t work out
for her was out of my hands.
