Not of this World

Hello there. Been awhile. That's okay.

So, I'm at camp. And right now, there's very few people here. More will be coming this weekend, but not many more, like 5 or 6. I've been thinking a lot about the people here and the relationships I have with them. I've realized that I don't really fit in to the whole group. I mean, people like me and they include me in things, but when it comes to really connecting, it just doesn't happen. This is my 4th summer here, and I don't really know much about any of them. Granted, some of them are only on their 2nd or third summer. Everyone is so much more outgoing than me, and so much more adventurous. Like jumping off cliffs into water, or hiking around on some big hill covered in woods and forestation. I like hiking, don't get me wrong, but they are so much faster and less clumsy than me. I'm trying to explain it, but I don't really know how. With my Oz friends, especially the girls, we have no problem hugging each other or being goofy like that. With the girls here at camp, they are like that with each other, but I don't feel close enough to them to act like that around them. I think a big part of the issue is that most of the staff here were FFA members and even State Officers (officers of New York FFA as a whole, not just in a school district). And I wasn't, so that's already one strike against me.

I also think it also has to do with the fact that no one really knows how to interact with a "quiet" person. Here, I am so much more quieter. I just have a harder time relating to people here. I think it also has to do with the fact that a lot of the staff drinks and find humor in vulgarity and sexual jokes and references, and then you have me, a Christian who chooses not to go down that road. I know I wasn't made to fit in and be in the world, but it's still kind of hard.

I was listening to Pastor Carter's Burn Series, and in one of the sermons, he talks about submitting to God, and to your spouse. Honestly, I didn't really ever know what it meant to "submit your will." But the way Pastor Carter explained it helped me understand it a lot better. He gave two examples, one to show that agreeing is not submitting, and then one to show how a person submits their will.

Ex 1: Husband: "Let's go to Denny's, honey."
Wife: "Okay!"

Ex 2: Husband: "Let's go to Denny's, honey."
Wife: "I'd rather stay home and have a meal here, but if it's on your heart to go to Denny's then I will go."

in the first example, the wife didn't submit her will, because she was in agreement, and it was her desire to go too. In the second example, the wife didn't really want to, but she chose to. She submitted her will to her husband. I used to think negatively about submission, as do many women, I assume. But in reality, it's nothing negative. So, when we are submitting our will to God, we are laying down our own desires to do what pleases Him. Pretty neato, huh? I think so. :-D