i am too young to be this old.

i've worked at camp for as long as some of my old heroes have, and i'm not even 20 yet.
i remember the night before i left for my first summer. i was 16 and innocent and mostly wanted to be an honorary camper. as in, hang out with all the old staffers that i loved, not have to be at home all summer, and while i had said since 8th grade that i wanted to be what my staffers were to me, i really had no idea how much that took.
a lot of crap went down that year. God taught me so much, and in such hard ways.
not that it wasn't a great summer. and given the chance to go back, i wouldn't do anything different. but i wish i had known how hard it would be. like a couple that has babies really early.
now, i'm at the front door of my fourth summer. and even though i know what i'm doing, i still feel so...small. i guess that's the right word.
my first year, the fourth years were britnie reid, elizabeth teal, porter, and maybe a couple others that i can't remember. i don't feel half as experienced or look-up-able as they were. i can't compare to them on any level. plus they were all at least 21.
so weird to think about. but the funny thing is, day 1's bible study is about jeremiah 1:4-10. even though i haven't looked over it half as carefully as i need to since i'll be teaching it to the new staff in 5 days, i do know that that passage is all about God telling him that just because he's young doesn't mean that he isn't called to great things.
i guess all this new responsibility is my great thing. and as unqualified as i feel, i'm holding tight to the fact that God thinks i can do it.

little things?

i've always wanted to do big things for God. i never imagined i'd be one of those people who was just called to small things.(aside from the fact that i'd so much rather be a mom than have a real job)
in the fall when everyone is talking about their summers, there's the people went to africa or someplace, the ones that worked at a camp or something similar, and then there's the ones who just stayed home and worked or maybe took summer classes. i admire the ones in the first group and beg for stories for weeks, and i always feel sorry for the people in the last group. not in a condescending way or anything, like i think there's something wrong with that or like i'm better than them because i'm in the second group. i just find myself thinking that i can't imagine not doing something big with my summer.
but you know, the 3rd group people could have just as much of an impact for Christ as anything else.
i've been thinking about that a lot lately. and i'm beginning to think that if God were to close the door on my plan A, i wouldn't be miserable and depressed all summer long, even though it would be weird and i would miss everything and everyone associated with it(i can't even write the word; i haven't cried in a few days and like it that way). i could live with His plan B.
not that i know what that is or anything. i'm still clueless, and i'm hoping and praying that our plans are the same. i just wonder if i'm too comfortable with plan A. God has been bringing up the concept of "comfort zones" a lot too. and i don't like the idea of leaving mine.
yesterday, just for fun, i was looking around online for mission trips that still have spaces open. and the more i thought of leaving hot showers, familiar food, and a comfy bed, the more i wished God would hurry and tell me whether i get to have my way this summer. (not that i feel too strongly that He'll call me off to the jungle if He does say no to my plan) but that does worry me a bit that i like america so much. in a way i really want to get out of here for a while and see how the rest of the world lives, for that very reason, but in a bigger way i still hope God doesn't have that in the cards for me.
i'm just very, very confused.

war stories.

i don't happen to find silence awkward. as much as i love to talk and love listening even more, i don't mind occasional silence. it lets me think, and if i never got to think, i would never write. and all of you faithful readers(note the sarcasm)wouldn't like that much.
however, i do love it if when i'm with my friends and there's a silence, and someone asks to hear a camp story. i never run out of them, so i never have to think very hard to come up with one on the spot.
this is the one that just now came in my head.
one day me and lia were down at the lake running canoeing, and lia puts her feet just on top of the water, and we laugh at how much dirt comes off of them. i stick my feet out and try to do the same thing...but they don't reach that far.
i have a whole genre of "laughs at the expense of linda's small-ness".

His ways are higher...

i've been craving more of God lately. i want to know what He wants and want what He wants.
usually when anything in my life becomes the least bit uncertain, i panic. if i do turn to God about it, it's to complain. asking why He's doing this and why i can't have the answers yet, etc.
but i feel really different. it's kind of scary.
i'm beyond excited right now that all my plans are so shaky. i want this giant "my way or the highway" sign to fall down and reveal a big billboard with His plan on it.
i;m sick of making my own plans and doing things my way, and being in God's will by coincidence. i'm sick of fighting for control. i don't even like the times when i feel like i AM in control anymore. i just want to sit back, and let God use me. wherever He chooses.
i'm not sad or angry or worried or scared. for once in my life, i LOVE that i don't know what's coming next.
i don't trust myself to run my life. it's so freeing to let God take it.
this song has been my prayer since the first time i heard it. i've wanted this feeling they're talking about for so long. i think i have it, but it's so unfamiliar and just weird that i'm not sure. but it sounds like this. 
put away all i know for tonight, and maybe i just might learn to let it go.
see, usually i'm a concrete person. i like to know things for sure. and when i do, i hold onto it so hard that i can't see what God has right in front of me.
take my security from me, and maybe finally i won't have to know everything.
God did that. and it's working. i don't like needing to know everything. and now i hate the certainty i've been clinging onto for so long.
i am falling into grace, to the unknown, to where you are.
unknown. yep, that's about right. i have no idea what this is that i'm feeling.
faith makes everybody scared, but it's the unknown, the don't know, that keeps me hanging onto You.
i do know that much: when i feel like my life is steady and in my hands, i don't notice God as much. it's these terrifying times of "where are we going, WAIT hold my hand i'm lost..." that get me desperately looking for God again.
but they're wrong on one point: i'm not scared. but i know this is faith.
and peace. perfect peace.
pray for my summer. i don't want the old plan anymore, unless God does turn out to have the same one. i have no idea what the answer to that will be, and i'm not afraid of it. i know He'll take care of me.

i don't want easy.

i was thinking(when am i ever not?) last night.
i'm good at surviving. when i see my plans start to fall apart, i can think of a backup plan like that.(ok. that phrase makes no sense when it's typed out, you have to be able to see the person's fingers snap) immediately my mind gets going, preparing for the worst.
i thought about what it would be like to not work at camp. i shocked myself at how quickly my mind started bubble wrapping itself, filling up with "you'll live" style thoughts.
i could sleep. i could work at domino's with daniel and make real money. i could take summer classes and not have to be in school for seven years. i could see my friends all the time.
it would be like i was a normal person having a normal summer. i haven't had that since i was in tenth grade.
yes, i would live. i would deal. i wouldn't be miserable. but i wouldn't be happy.
and that's when i'm thinking about myself.(even then, i have plenty of selfish reasons for wanting camp too, and as far as it depends on me, i'll always choose camp.)
when i think about my girls, it breaks my heart to think about not getting to see them and hug them and hear about their year and watch how much they've grown up over just one year. and besides the ones that keep coming back, i don't want to think about there being new ones that i'll never get to meet.
and i've never ever questioned if God wanted me at camp. if course that's what He wants. why would i love it so much and be so good at it if it wasn't?(bad reasons, i know, but they're just my favorites of a few dozen)
yes, i could take the easy way out. the way that includes no hoops to jump through, plenty of sleep, more money and no drama. but none of that is what i want or need.
i'm gonna get in there and fight.

"why do you want to return as a camp la vida staffer?"

i am FINALLY buckling down and filling out my camp application(jenna won our bet). and this question gets me every year. first of all because it makes me laugh; asking why i want to come back to camp is like asking the sky why it will be blue tomorrow: it's just the way things should be. i belong at camp. camp is home.
and second of all, because it should be the easiest part of the whole form. but i have trouble knowing where to start, and how to keep myself from writing three pages. how do i fit a good enough explanation in a paragraph?(i did it, but it was hard)
so, since i have no limitations here, i'm gonna list every reason i can think of.

WHAT I WANTED TO WRITE ON MY APPLICATION:
i want to come back to camp because...
1. i miss my girls. so much. now and then i wake up in the middle of the night and for a split second i think to go check on them, but sadly, i don't have any. or i start to walk out my door and(i did this the other day actually) i turn around to start counting to 12. i miss their off the wall thoughts, i miss their questions in Bible study(both the profound-beyond-their-years kind and the kind that make me laugh until i cry), i miss them fighting over who gets to hold my hand next, i even miss the homesick ones. i miss letting them know how special and wonderful they are, especially the ones who don't hear that at home. i just miss getting to love on them every day.
2. i miss my friends. i miss encouraging them, i miss getting hugs, and i miss telling all our stories on fridays. i miss weekends where we have near death experiences on the way to columbia, or tori steals my teddy bear in the middle of the night, or we spend a sunday in the admin eating my sour patch kids and watching youtube and dancing in the parking lot in the rain.
3. i love being in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone, no facebook, no twitter.
4. camp is God's summer home. i don't miss Him much during the year now that i found where He is when it isn't summer(ciu, if you couldn't tell), but i still feel a different kind of closeness out there.
5. it's the most beautiful place in the world, rain or shine, and i want to wake up every morning and walk through spider webs and hear birds and smell pine trees everywhere.
6. i don't want to live at home and get a real job. i don't care if it would make me two or three times as much money(and i doubt if i'm even exaggerating much), i'd rather do something that makes a difference than make pizzas all day.(daniel could get me a job at domino's right this minute if i asked him)
7. i love missions, and i love missionaries. i love their stories and their kids and i wait all year long to hear from them and hang out with them every day for ten weeks.
8. i laugh a lot at camp, and the more you laugh the longer you live, and i like being alive. so basically, i'll come to camp again because i don't want to die yet. hehe.
9. i like mail, and i get lots of it at camp. i also like sending it, so i'm sure my friends would appreciate me being there because that means they get letters, and i write awesome letters.
10. every year i wonder what God can possibly teach me about Him, myself, or life in general, and every year He shows up and serves up a new lesson about all three. i am bouncing off the walls waiting to see what He'll think up this year.
11. i'm happier at camp than i am anywhere else.
12. i really like having a walkie in my bedroom. i wish we had those at school. wouldn't that be awesome? imagine at 1 am: "lauren, switch to 2" "i'm here" "go make the girls in the bathroom shut up" "ok, back to 1"
you know it'd be cool.
13. i miss flory and miss minnie's cooking, a lot. i wish they ran the cafeteria here.
14. i don't have a low ropes course in my backyard.
15. or a pool. and i wouldn't have little kids to play in it with if i did.
16. i don't get a flag or bragging rights for cleaning my room at home, all i get is a list of things i still need to fix.
17. worship every night. nuff said.
18. there is no other place where random singing is completely acceptable and strongly encouraged. do you know what kind of looks i would get if i busted out in the beaver song in the middle of walmart?(tori, let's do that this summer. winnsboro could use a little excitement.)
19. shower races!
20. i like to walk. we do that a lot there.
21. we don't compost at my house. shameful.
22. i learn more from my girls than i do from my friends at home.
23. i love hugs, and they're a big thing around there.
24. i am having SERIOUS slushie withdrawals.
25. it's my calling and my purpose and my passion. like that runner dude in chariots of fire, i "feel God's pleasure" when i'm there. i'm playing a part in something eternal, something bigger than just me. i'm serving God the way i was made to, and that's the most exciting feeling in the world. i haven't found that anywhere else yet.
26. i just plain love it. and that's enough reason right there.

themes.

i was reading the syllabus for english, and thinking about how much i do. not. want. to retake this class, and i was thinking about mr jones at csu(he SUCKED. if you're a freshman there right now, take that class from harris, i beg you)and how much he drilled the concept of theme into our heads. and asked us to think of so many different themes from everything we read when most of them didn't even fit into the story(although, i'm really dense about literature, so they probably all worked and i just didn't get it), and somehow i started thinking about camp...how DID i get there? whatever. camp. theme. it's 1 am, quit laughing at me.
so then i was thinking how each of my summers was different from the others.(it's still hard to believe there's only been three) they all dragged on and seemed like they'd never end, the second one especially(not that this was ever a bad thing), and they all changed my life in some way, but they all had their different big, major, overarching THEMES going on(see mr jones, i did NOT deserve that D. i totally got the point even if all my papers were like 4 lines short).

2008 was overwhelming, crazy, eye opening...so many things. i was so, so young, and had no idea what i was getting into. i was finally living this dream that i'd had since middle school, and it was nothing like i expected, but in all the best ways. i remember my first first week, when elizabeth told me that i was an adult at camp, and i would be learning a lot. it was a scary thought, being an adult at 16. and on top of all that, having my view of camp shaken, turned inside out, the whole summer was just a blur. that year was all about learning. the little things, like how to make a slushie and how to turn on the fan in cabin 7(to this day, you still have to turn it all the way to the right and then back one notch), or the bigger things, like how to survive when people bail on you, how to let go of those who do, how to love even the most difficult kids, and how to be that person that a little girl will remember for the rest of her life.

2009 was the hardest. there are some weeks that i don't even like to read my journals from, because i don't like to remember how i felt about them. (yes, it was that bad, and yes, i do write in that much detail.) it was a summer full of change, and i wasn't ready for it. (ironically, this year i was totally braced for big shocks like that, and it was the first year that no one had jumped ship in the middle) i was still somewhat in camper mode, as much as i'd grown the first summer. see, the kids don't ever quite understand that no one stays at camp forever. people grow up, graduate, or get "big girl jobs" and even the ones who totally love it have to leave one day. (except for me. when i'm 50 and have grandkids i'll still be the awesomest cabin leader ever. [kidding.]) i had made camp all about the staff. yes i loved the campers to death, but once certain people were gone, it was like i totally forgot how to do my job. or rather, i forgot how to love it. and at the end of that summer, i was really leaning towards not coming back. (that didn't last for long. just like i can't stay mad at scott for more than a few days, i can't hate camp for long either.) that summer was like a metaphor for my whole life. when things change, or people leave, i shut down. i make my life about the people in it, and not about Who's running it. (and i didn't even realize that until spring. it was late february before i even started the application, and it wasn't because i'd been lazy and putting it off, it made me sad to look at it. but that's a different story for a different post) that summer was about change. it took me a while to realize how much good all of it did.

2010...i'm not even sure of one repeating idea yet. it was the most different, the most dramatic, the most rewarding, and the best. but my attitude was so much different this year. i came in accepting so many things. instead of fighting them, i realized that there were certain things that were just part of camp.
there will always be drama. girls are like beta fish: stick 30 of them together for ten weeks, and eventually we'll start fighting. that's not quite the best analogy since we do love each other and the fish don't, but whatever. instead of wondering why stuff went on, i just tried to stay out of what i could and make the best of what i couldn't.
every summer will be different. different staff makes for a different dynamic. i've always gotten excited every year about the new staff that will be coming in, but mostly because i just like meeting new people anywhere i go. this year i couldn't wait to see what each new person would bring to the table, how we would all work together. instead of complaining that it wasn't the same as other years, i expected it and for that, i loved it.
i can't settle on a word to describe 2010. i guess, the results of and my reactions to the changes that happened in '09. but that still doesn't sound right.
137 days until a new one begins. and i have a feeling, this will be the most different of all. but i'm still excited for it. God has always managed to show up, and the less i have to expect, the bigger surprise He's got. i'm so ready to see it.