This is a prayer that I pray sometimes... I always think its a good idea at the time until He answers and suddenly I find my heart breaking where it didnt before.
This week we had a high school staying at camp, all of the grade 9s came out for a few days and I was given a group of nine 13 year old girls to lead in teamwork/communication games and various activities for a few days, which I wouldnt normally think twice about, I love this type of thing. But I had prayed this prayer just a few days earlier and when I met these girls I saw with open eyes how insecure they were, how desperate they were to be accepted, how fearful they were that they wouldnt. They were searching for who they were, how they fit into this new school... but of course 13 year olds cant express this for what it is (heck, most adults cant even!) and so they were just acting up, being stupid, insulting eachother, pulling eachother down...as a way of trying to understand all this. And it broke my heart. I felt so sad, I wanted so much for them to see that they are beautiful, that they are loved, that it's okay to be confident and be themselves. But I didnt know how to express this for what it is either, so I just felt sad for them. I ran pointless games and empty debriefs and they made jokes and pushed eachother round and neither of us expressed what we really felt and neither of us got anything out of the session.
I went away feeling discouraged... we had a night hike planned for later that night with the same groups and to be honest I didnt really want to do it. I didnt want to be with those girls and I didnt want to feel broken and burdened for them again, espcecially since last time I felt it had come to nothing. We started our walk through the dark together and I was praying that God would redeem this time, to make it into something beautiful despite myself and my bitterness about being there. Normally with a night hike I would take them into the woods and we walk without lights and play games and I teach them about the eyes and night vision and animals that come out at night and things like that. But tonight after I prayed I felt like that wasnt what God had planned for tonight. So we just walked along the road for a bit, them grateful that they didnt have to go in the bush and get dirty and me wondering why I was taking them this way because it wasnt fun or educational... I got to an open field on the side of the road and I felt God say "Stop here." So we stopped and I told them to lay down on the ground and look at the stars for a while, since in the city you cant see them. For 5 mins we lay in silence. no one said anything (which was unusual enough by this stage for me to know that God was about to do something) Then out of these girls came questions like "Do you think the universe ever ends? How did the stars get there? What will happen when all the stars die? What do you feel when you look at the stars? Do you think God is real? Why are the stars even there...? I breathed out a prayer of thanks, that He had stilled their hearts and was stirring these questions up in them, and I offered up my words, saying that I didnt know what to say, could He please speak through me. Then with these public school girls, where they're not allowed to speak of God... we talked about creation and glory and the beginning and time and humanity...
Then about boys and food and farting and bad habits. But it was different, God had moved in them and in me.
I learned that being broken for the things that God's heart breaks for is not the end. That's not the point. But that once we reach that place of being unable to love well, of being humbled, of reaching the end of ourselves when we have nothing to offer... then God will move. And from that place I know it was Him, because it couldnt possibly have been me.
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