a long exhale...

(Insert long exhale here……)

I’ve been pushing this post off, not wanting to go here, but I must, I must report, expose, share

I must report about the amazing events of this weekend

Expose the state of my soul,

And share what’s now rumbling in my head.

 

I’ll try to do this without tears staining my computer screen.

 

Report:

This weekend was a Holy weekend for me. 

We had just shy of 200 middle schoolers and adults hanging out in cabins, auditoriums and odd recreation rooms next to an icy bay in Maryland for about a total of 40 hours. 

Those 40 hours where life to my soul.

A team of adults have been working and praying together for months to create a weekend that would drive home four scared truths.  The truth that

 

Jesus is…

… Supreme

… a brilliant creator

… in control

… is fixing everything

 

That Jesus is supreme, or matchless, to all of life’s problems.  That Jesus brilliantly created the world and you.  That Jesus is in control of the things that we can’t see or make sense of, and that, tears are now starting to form, that no matter what mess you might be facing Jesus is fixing this broken world around us.

What joy comes form seeing 200 hearts wrestling with that truth, 200 hurts being faced with those facts, 200 sets of eyes being redirected and challenged when they look in the mirror, 200 fears being quieted as questions about Grandma’s health, Dad’s job, and mom’s death rush to mind. 

Sunday morning I whelped giant drops from my eyes as we heard stores from the adults closest to these kids sharing stories of how they were grasping these truths. 

A summation of the weekend would be found in my friend Paul’s words, “I need something bigger then me… this is bigger then me”

 

Expose:

Bigger then me…

That has been my heart’s cry these past few months, to find something bigger then me, to know that how the hours and minutes of my life tick by that they are going to something greater then wasted hours of emails, hollow mortgage payments, or selfish materialist desires fulfillment. 

My heart had forgot what it was like to stand in front of a crowd and shape words into images, emotions, and truths in such a way that calls us out of our smallness and into His greatness.  I had forgotten what it feels like for your heart to scream at you “this is what makes you leap up in the morning, this is what makes you stand in the shower for an extra ten minutes talking to yourself, this is what you find yourself daydreaming about, this is what makes you come alive!”

My heart has been re-exposed to an old love… a love that it now longs to embrace again.

 

Share:

The reason why I’ve not blogged is because I could not construct words.  All I knew was that I cried Monday morning as I packed my bag for work.  Not because I dislike my job, no I’ve got a good job, but because I knew the weekend was over, constructing stories and truths would be replaced with sales pitches and fake smiles, at least for a while.

I am thankful for this season of life.  I’m and thankful for the pain and tears of the past few days.  I am thankful because in my tears, in my hearts churning, in the returning to my current reality, God has so gracious reminded me of what I was created for.  But like a seed in the ground, a caterpillar on a branch, or baby wobbling around, I must now learn the art of being patient, of being content, of trusting, and in God’s perfect timing He will do what’s best.

Others:

The last few paragraphs were a lot about me, sorry about that.  In a nutshell the weekend was simply amazing.  God moved in student’s lives, adult’s lives, my life, and it was ultimately very little about me and very much about Jesus.

 

Pictures:

Here’s a link to a smorgasbord of pictures, as you can tell most of my time was spent with the band…  Enjoy!

PS - My friend PJ blogged through the weekend.  Here's his take