"then a little bit of hope came singing from cabin 9."

i found this in my journal from summer '09.
it was written during the lowest, darkest point of my camp "career".
someone had left. again. but the entire staff was feeling it this time. i didn't see how we would be the same without this person to look up to.
i didn't want to be there anymore. i wanted to leave and never come back. i didn't see how i could go on.
laying on the cabin leader's bed in cabin 10, so numb i couldn't even cry, i suddenly heard hannah failoni's cabin singing this song(i miss that song, i'll have to remember to teach my campers next year. it had awesome fun hand motion things to go with it. anyways...)

bind us together lord, bind us together
with cords that cannot be broken.
bind us together lord, bind us together lord
bind us together with love.

and with that, i knew i could stay. it wouldn't be the same ever again, but God would fix it. He'd given us each other for a reason, and we could suck it up together and go on. and we did.
and i still have. truth is, i thought about that every day this summer. i saw how much it forced me to grow. my first one and a half summers were like riding a bike with training wheels; the middle of last summer i had to learn to stay up on my own. well, correction: i had to learn to stand up with God's help, and not primarily find my strength and encouragement from other people. i had to see God as the center of camp and the reason it was so amazing.
i think that's why this summer was so exponentially better than the other two. the first two, i was leaning on somebody else. both years, that person got taken away. thank goodness the second time around i learned. and it made all the difference in the world.