Photo Credit: Khánh Hmoong
A five-minute post Camp Cameron snapshot on life so far.
Today, I messed up. I dilly-dallied and lazed around, didn't do my Bible reading like I wanted to, fell into a bad habit that I thought I got over with, felt envious of my friends who could drive, and then argued with my mom about the very same issue after that. I still feel this intense need to prove to my parents, and to everyone else, that I can, because I feel like I cannot and need their validation to 'prove' that I can. I don't feel like a transformed, victorious person in Christ at all, at least not today! I feel like giving up. I really do. After all, it's what I always do. When friends don't respond to invitations to makan together one, two times, I stop calling them together. I'd rather shop alone then to make plans with people who might not come along anyway. I'd rather be a hermit, under a shell, whatever you'd call it. I give up.
I give up. I'd rather not try than crash and burn again, in anything. I'd rather condemn myself beforehand than to actually fail.
Yet the God that I encountered in Camp Cameron was there the whole while even before that, asking me to look at Him:
Debra, though you may give up on yourself too easily, and though you always assume that everyone else has given up, too, I have never, and will never, give up on you.
All that self-condemning is a shield from people's condemnation, which most of the time exists in the realms of imagination anyway.
Deb, it's okay to feel pain, it's okay to hurt, but don't give up so fast-lah! There's so much in life that might be missed out if everything also give up so easily.
Photo Credit: Neil Krug, text mine
ps. more on Camp Cam, and other happenings in June/July, soon :)
