The best week of my life

On this past Friday (June 24, 2011) at 1pm the best week of my life ended.

This was my second year at WVA. So my expectations were high. But the staff, lectures and students easily  exceeded them. I learned more in these 6 days than I learned in the entirety of last year. And not only did I learn more about the nature of my Lord and Savior, but I also learned a lot about myself as well.

I learned that it's not me doing God's work. Ever. No matter how hard I try, I can never accomplish anything on my own. It's always God. All I can do is follow closely, pushing my bubble mower behind Him as we mow the lawn together.
To me, this is the most comforting thing in the world. One of  the things I struggle with most in life is self consciousness. Wondering whether people are going to accept or reject me. But if it's God doing all the work, I don't have to worry about messing up. His will is going to be accomplished not matter what I do.
This was especially helpful when we went evangelizing on Wednesday. Which was quite an eye-opening experience. Sometimes I think we, as Christians, sort of disregard the fact that there are people out in the world with a different set of beliefs than us. People destined for eternal separation from God if we stand idly by.

I also learned that with my new found attitude of taking the focus off me, it's easy to make friends and develop relationships. I made some friends this past week that I will never forget. And hopefully never lose contact with. The pure fellowship at camp, a fellowship driven by the sole purpose of going deeper into a relationship with God, is something I haven't been able to find anywhere else. It's easy to walk into a church and run into hundreds of people just going through the motions. At WVA, you have the best of the best. Those committed to a Christ-like existence. My favorite part of the week was our coming together at the end of the night to worship through song. When the guitar would pause and every voice cried out to God in unison. Those are the moments I live for.

It's hard to sum up in words all that went down at camp this year. I'm leaving out many lecture topics and many events that took place. But I guess the most important thing I took away from camp is that anyone with influence is a leader. That means that I am a leader. Whether I like it or not. The only choice I have in the matter is what kind of a leader I am going to be. What kind of example am I going to set for those watching?

I wish to be an example of humility. Of servitude. And of grace.
The word grace always brings to mind the words of my favorite hymn, O Come Thou Fount. One of the first lines goes as follows, "Tune my heart to sing they grace."
Now, I have no idea if I am interpreting this correctly, but when I sing this song I imagine God as a great crafter of instruments. He takes my heart, like a violin, and tightens the strings so that they perfectly play this melody of grace. That may sound cheesy, but to me it's an awesome metaphor for God training and changing my heart so that it may extend love and forgiveness to those around me.
I know that I will not always exceed in this goal. But I would rather hold myself to a high standard and fall short than not hold myself to any standard and remain the same, apathetic person my whole life.
And I realize that by saying this I am making myself a target for anyone watching. A target for criticism and doubt.
But with God doing all the work, I cannot fail. So I will relinquish my delusion of control on my own life and see where he takes me. Because every time I let God call the shots, my life ends up way better than it was before.

Even though this week had to come to a close, I know the point of it was to prepare me for something even better. I look forward to the day that I step through the pearly gates and meet again, in perfect fellowship with all those from WVA. When we never have to be separated, never have to go back into the real world where life is full of suffering. And we can once again join together in song to praise the name of the Lord.

My recipe for getting through life

Originally, I only had 3 cardinal rules of life. But this list has been growing recently.

This first list is as follows:
1. Never make eye contact (with people on the street, customers at your place of work, or adults in charge of bringing you out of your comfort zone)
2. Never volunteer for anything (especially when you don't know what  you are volunteering for)
3. Never take the top lid in the stack of lids when purchasing a fountain drink.

The word 'never' appears to frequently on this list, however. So rule number 4 came about.
4. Spend at least 30 minutes a day in an attitude of ridiculousness (how else could one stay sane?)

And by ridiculousness I mean complete and utter disregard for the opinions of others. I usually spend my 30 minutes of ridiculousness frolicking in  large lawns, dancing about my house, singing at the top of my lungs or trespassing into other people's yards so that I can jump on  their trampolines.

In essence, these rules were designed to help me (and you, if you so choose to follow them) get the most out of life. And provide protection from bodily harm.
 

This random short blog has been brought to you by me, courtesy of my insomnia. 

Insomnia + "Knights of Shame" = This Blog Entry

As I type these words I find myself gripped by a strange case of the nerves. I'm not entirely sure why. Is it because I will soon be sending my innermost thoughts into the world, subjecting them to criticism and mockery? Or, is it simply a side effect of my nerve racking drive home tonight?

I hate driving in the dark. During the 15 minute drive all I could do was grip the steering wheel with my sweaty hands and picture large men in ski masks jumping out from behind the trees and bushes at the sides of the road. So, I played my music very loudly and tried to keep my speed from going too far beyond 5 over the speed limit.

Once I got on to better lit streets with stoplights instead of stop signs and more life than the random passing car I relaxed a bit. I let the GPS scream at me as I took a different way home than it was suggesting. I even rolled down the windows a little bit. Of course, when I got home I proceeded to watch a trailer for a new horror movie entitled "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." This is probably the reason I can't sleep and am writing this blog in that awkward time between night and morning.

My insomnia may also be owing to the fact that I find myself incapable of shutting off my ipod mid song. I will sometimes stay up hours past the time I meant to fall asleep simply because I had to keep listening to music. Tonight I have been listening to Awolnation. Specifically, the songs "Sail" and "Knights of Shame." These songs are not exactly interchangeable with lullabies and therefore do more to ward off sleep than to promote it.

Plus, since school got out last week  the latest I have stayed up is 11pm. I felt like I owed it to myself to not go to bed that early tonight.

Now that I am running out of ways to tie my thoughts together, I am realizing that I probably should explain the name of this blog (the 5th of 6) in order to give this post a purpose.
Do you really wanna know?
I'm not convinced that you do. But I'll share it with you anyways. I'm nice like that.
Be warned, the explanation is probably a lot less awesome than you're thinking it will be. No, I did not place 5th of 6 in any Olympic game or chess tournament. No, I don't own the 5th of any set of 6 rare collectible items. I am simply the 5th child in a family of 6 girls. But that's a story for another post.

It is probably the time to lay the foundation for this blog as well. The purpose of this blog is for me to express myself through whatever words I deem necessary. I will be documenting the aggressively mediocre aspects of my existence for anyone who cares to join me on this journey they call life. Who "they" are, I'm not entirely sure. But people tend to reference them quite often, so they must be important. Right?

You'll be hearing from me again in the near future, so stay alert. The end.