I hate to put this post in the category of those many blogs that go something like "rawr my life sux i hate it at home os much my family iz dumb" etc., but sometimes . . . I dunno.

So I got back from Camp Team last week on Saturday. Ohmygoodness, the best summer of my life. Which is so wonderful -- my first summer of counseling two years ago went pretty well, but ended on a downer; then my second summer went okay but I felt like a crappy counselor because I got absorbed in my own problems -- but this summer was astounding. My team bonded, which I totally did not expect -- I had AMAZING campers almost every week (Elkanah and Pinecroft and Black Lake girls -- I love you!!) -- and I saw God work so many changes in not only the hearts of my campers, but my own as well.

Not gonna lie, it was intense sometimes, and the summer wasn't even halfway over before I was friendsick for all my buddies. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. One of my fears before the summer was that I'd get absorbed in myself again and not give my campers what they needed. But by Tuesday of my second week (high school week at Elkanah!), I wasn't afraid to love anymore. Somehow something clicked and I understood. Something about knowing that you are loved by God and that He has given you what you need to accomplish the work He has set before you -- it puts confidence in your little heart. And it definitely doesn't hurt when a camper says thank you or tells you she thinks you're cool. :D It's a witness of God's power that He can use little me that has struggled with so much insecurity and fear. There's no other way. I remember thinking fall semester of my freshman year that I would never be a camp counselor. And here I am, three summers of camp later. There is nothing in the world I love better than hanging out with young girls and pointing them to Jesus in whatever I do. I want to do it forever, and I hope I get to in some form or another.

Which brings me to the original reason I started typing. Like I said, I came home last week, and of course one of the first things I wanted to do was tell my family about how cool the summer was! I hadn't really seen them in 8 weeks, so I thought, y'know, they'd be kinda excited too. Well, not really. What actually happened is that at dinner I looked at the pictures on my laptop and talked about camp (mostly to myself, 'cause nobody was really interested) while the rest of my family talked to each other, mostly complaining or criticizing. And then that night:

Me (to Dad): Dad, I love ministry so much.
Dad: That's good. You know, you really should work on not mumbling when you talk.
Me: =|!

I just don't understand my family. It's one of the most frustrating things in the world. Supposedly we're Christians -- but then why is there so much negativity? Someone's always yelling at someone else for something. You didn't do this right. Well you didn't do it at all. . . . Bah! I could go on. And how come when we talk about God or spiritual matters, it's either some matter-of-fact discussion about something, perhaps theology, or a lecture about how we need to be more obedient and respectful. Where is the passion? Where is the love? I thought we're Christians because we want to know God and love Him more and more, because He is a wonderful, loving, powerful, gracious, and good God!

So whenever I come back it's like living in a black hole. It seems like the moment I cross the threshold all my desire to do good is sucked away and I am once again in the most de-motivating place I know. It's so constricting. And I hate it! But I don't even understand it. I feel so guilty for becoming this other person that I don't even want to be, but I can't seem to do anything else. I dunno, I can't explain it . . . but it's like the flow of something is stopped, and something else shrivels up as a result, and I live a hollow life for the time I'm here. Okay, this is getting really abstract . . .

Oh, I dunno. I just know that things'll be a lot easier when I'm back at school. In the meantime, I need to write three research papers! Eek! Anastasia was dumb and only wrote one in May and half of June, when she should have written at least two. Yipes. I'll go get started on that . . . right now. Anybody know anything about medieval chivalry?

It's rare the times that I feel compelled to write, so I'm making the most of the opportunity.

So the latest Christian fad is a book called Blue Like Jazz, written by one Don Miller, who lives in Portland, Oregon. When it came out a few months ago, I avoided it at all costs, to make sure I was not one of the silly people who picks up whatever Christian book happens to be cool at the moment. Whether or not that's actually true . . . anyway.

Well, it held on so long that I knew I had to read it. (There is a point where a fad ceases to be a fad and becomes something worthy to talk about.) Both my roommates starting reading it, and both said it was incredibly good.

It is. Sometimes it may get a little under your skin if you're conservative Baptist Republican and all that, but his whole point is to strip away the facade that Christian culture so often puts up, and confront you with the bare truth.

I went into this book not quite knowing what to expect, except that this guy had a lot of good things to say about being a Christian. For the first few chapters I was even confused about how old he was (he's not married? . . . auditing classes at Reed College?). Once I understood where he was coming from, it was a little easier to take in everything he was saying.

For the past few months I have sensed God showing me more and more of just how little I really understand Him and what it means to be a Christian. I say this with much shame. I have spent my whole life talking in Christianese and doing "good Christian" things without really knowing why. I mean, I do know why, and I could tell you. But something I have learned is that head knowledge almost always precedes heart knowledge. You could know something in your head for a lifetime and never understand it in your heart.

I have always wanted to love God; there has never been a time in my life where I haven't wanted to know Him, even when I hated how things were going. Why I could never explain, except that this is totally a gift of His grace -- I love because I was loved first (I John 4:19). Despite the somewhat (okay, very) stoic upbringing I had -- which taught that being a Christian was a very serious thing, and most emotion was to be carefully evaluated for fear of a silly or even evil origin -- I remember always admiring those Christians who enthusiastically expressed their passion for their Lord, and wanting to be like them someday.

I realize now that that was me wanting what every other human being that lives on this earth wants -- a secure relationship with our Creator. The book of Hosea sums up what will be the story of the world: a husband taking and loving a woman that he really had no reason to, and then personally redeeming her even after she had destroyed their relationship by giving herself to evil men. There are two (of many!) basic facts about humans -- 1) we all know that we are unworthy of being loved, but 2) we all desperately want to be loved anyway. When I saw those Christians raising their hands in worship and shouting about how they got to share the gospel with somebody and gushing about what they learned in their personal devotions, I knew that they had found what everyone's looking for. How else can you explain a passion so real?

So what's the problem? It should be easy. Everybody knows this in their heart of hearts. Why doesn't everyone just drop what they're doing and run with arms outspread to God? The short answer is sin. We all know this. From the time we attend preschool Sunday school, this reality is drilled into our minds, and rightly so. It's reality, after all. But just because the word is only three letters long and is understood (at least in the head) by even very small children doesn't mean that it is anything less than formidable (did that sentence make sense? I don't even know. Moving on . . . ).

The thing that I have been struggling with my whole life, and especially the past few months, is pride. Sometimes we call it "having something to prove," and I think that is a very good name for it. Because the irony in the cliche is that it means you really have nothing you can prove. The thing is is that it's so easy to get caught up in! I have had something to prove ever since I can remember. Whether it was being the more diligent child, the smarter kid, the more talented singer, or the better Christian, there was always something I looked to to assure myself of my value. When 5,999,999,999 other people in the world are trying to prove something, you want to prove something too. Actually, even if you were the only person on earth, you'd still be trying to prove something. We do not want to face the fact that we are really nothing. Nothing apart from God, that is. Here is the age-old dilemma: either we accept that we are nothing by ourselves and need God to fulfill us, or we reject God, deny our need, and go through life using up what little we have to call our own (our free will). It makes me think of The Great Divorce, where the dead spirits, who by now have dwindled to nothing but ridiculously grotesque shadows, still insist on their great importance even as they stumble around heaven like babies.

We are tiny. We want to be big, but we are tiny. We try to make ourselves look big by slapping labels on ourselves, like "cool," "smart," or "gifted." But in those moments where God allows us a glimpse at reality and we realize how stupid we were to ever think those names meant something . . . those are our opportunities to admit to ourselves what we really amount to and exchange a false worth for a real worth. The missionary-martyr Jim Elliot has been in the news lately, and I'm reminded of one of his quotes: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." This is what Jesus was talking about when he said that we had to deny ourselves and take up our cross in order to follow him (Matthew 16:24-26).

Oh, Lord. Why is it so hard? I am sorry that my stubborn pride will not let me even want You. I am sorry that I pretend that I am something when You have made me all I am. I am sorry that I keep going back to that attitude of making You as small as possible and myself as big as possible without completely denying You. I am sorry. Please take my heart and mold it according to how it should be. Help me want to want You. Tozer's Pursuit of God puts it so beautifully: "I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still." Make me Yours, O God.

I got tagged by Jenyar, so here goes.

1) My friends laugh at me for what they call the "Numa Numa" dance.

2) Whenever I have lots of homework, I cope with stress by playing all day and then starting it after everyone goes to bed -- at 1 in the morning.

3) I use the same cup for at least three days in a row and stick it in the fridge. Why should you have to wash more than one?

4) I have the worst time getting out of bed. I'm always the last one out of the four girls that live in this apartment.

5) I've become attached to my Spider-Man fleece blanket. I sleep with it at night.

All right! I tag Jessica, Amanda, Sarydia, Step, and . . . Ashley!

"Anaso Sopor, Oohcorolla of Ibuprofen."

What's YOUR Star Wars name?

During a conversation about gestation times and humans vs. elephants:

"I do NOT want to take care of a pregnant man!!"

Laura said that being a pregnant as an elephant would be better, because it would take 8 months to actually start showing, but Holly held that 22 months would take way too long for anything to happen. I was just wondering what it would be like if men and women could trade off being pregnant. "Honey, isn't it your turn this time?"