I remember my first interview with Jim for a summer staff position, back in 2019. When my interview was wrapping up, Jim asked if I had any questions. The only question that a shy new-to-camp me could think of was “What’s your favorite part of camp?’’ To this, Jim responded easily, “The people.” Now in 2021 after serving two summers at Family Camp, and just over a month into my internship here at the awe-strikingly beautiful Pilgrim Pines, I must say my answer is the same.
Now this is the part where I give you a little background on myself and how I came to work and live here this year. This was not the vision that I had for my life back when I applied for summer staff two years ago. If God had given 17 year old me a glimpse into the pandemic, and my freshman year of college all online, my younger self would’ve run and hid from his calling. Prior to 2020 I had a vision. My plan entailed me moving away to college after completing high school, I was going to spend lots of time with my friends before we all went our separate ways, and I was going to have my life’s purpose all worked out. Simple right?
I could not have been more wrong. Instead of going to the colleges I craved to go to, I realized early in the application process that nearly every school I wanted to move to was out of my price range. Boom those dreams collapsed before they even really started. Second, I didn’t see any of my friends for the last few months of my senior year because we were all stuck in quarantine. At that point my prayers went from telling God how excited I was for my future to crying out to him asking what in the world had happened to the original plan. Third, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing with my life. This was a hard struggle for me, I had asked every single day multiple times a day for God’s clarity on his purpose for my life, but would receive no answer. I remember thinking frequently throughout 2020, how am I supposed to fulfill what God has for me if he won’t tell me what he has planned?
All of the messiness of these past two years have guided me many times to this Bible verse: Proverbs 19:21. “Many are the plans in a man’s(woman’s) heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” I am still at a loss sometimes when I think of what God has next for me, but this verse always reminds me that I am serving a good and all-knowing God. I make up plans in my head all the time for what my future will look like. I want to eventually earn a degree, and get a job doing something that I love. To me, that sounds like an easy list, but I rarely think of what goes into the preparation for the life that I desire. God knows the steps, God carefully made me and is continually sculpting me into the person that I pray all the time for him to help me to be. The dreams that God has put on my heart are something that I believe will happen, but I also believe that these things will be fulfilled through God’s perfect will, and not by my imperfect will.
So even though my future is a little foggy right now, I am trusting God with my path. Something I’ve learned this year is that sometimes the greatest growth in faith comes from believing in God’s plan even when we cannot see how he will put those plans into motion. I will leave you with one more Bible verse that assures me that I don’t have to know everything that God knows which is, Proverbs:3 5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”