Goin' Under.

Oh heyyyyyy!!!

I feel like it's been awhile. Has it been awhile? Yeah, I think it has. Anywho, just wrappin' up another week here in the video suite and it's definitely been a doozy. Not quite sure how you spell doozy, but that's my best attempt.

I love my job, I really do, but there are moments, brief moments, when I would like to scream and kick some kiddies in the shins. I'm just being honest here friends. This week I had kids actually grab me and whip me around. Yes, firm grip on the right shoulder followed by a swift pull and a "hey camera-lady get me get me." I'm ok with you not taking the half a second to read my name tag and refer to me by name. I'm even ok with you not asking nicely, with your demanding. I am not, however, ok with you grabbing my body so that you can get a moment on the big screen. I'm a person. Yes, I may have an infant sized growth coming out of my right hand that documents the life you live at camp, but I am still a person.

Enough of that. I'm choosing to rejoice in the moments when I'm most perturbed. They are children. They don't know any better, right?

It's night 6. The last night 6 of the summer. High school camp will be over mid day tomorrow. And then the tweenies get here. Hoorayyyy middle school. I'm quite excited, although I'm certain these children will be even less aware of my personal bubble than the high schoolers. And so I prepare myself now. For the chaos. For the awkward. For the discomfort. For all the fun that comes with junior highers. Should be interesting.

And onto wadin' in the wadah.

I'm getting baptized tomorrow and I've been asked what I'm going to leave under the water. And since that question was posed, my heart has been a bit tumultuous. There's been a whole lotta years filled with a whole lotta lies that I've clung to from my past. Clung to them for fear of what might happen if I started speaking out against them.

It's my choice. I have the option. I can continue to harvest these wrongs in my heart. Continue believing untruths that only serve to aid in my demise. Or I can leave them under the water.

But I'm having a hard time believing in the "once and for all" of this matter. But I am willing. I am willing to cast them away, and prayerfully banish them from my life, hoping they won't leech their way back in.

And what are the lies I'm leaving behind you ask?

Coming from the mouth of Satan himself,

"Your opinion, your words don't matter. Your feelings are not valid. You're not smart enough. You're not faithful enough. And you're certainly not pretty enough. You will become addicted. You will. You will never marry. You will never bear children. Your parents don't love you. They never have. If you only knew what people think about you. If you only knew how unworthy you are. You are dirty. Defiled. There's nowhere to hide from the shame you wear like a cloak. You will never be thin enough. Or fit enough. Your height. Your height is despicable. Giant. Behemoth. Beast."

You've read all about the abuse of my past. The addiction that floods my family ties. The hurt. The sadness. The inability to communicate. The putrid unhealthiness. It reeks. And so I'm ready to wash it away.

I've been hating myself the past couple weeks because all I want is for God to be enough for me. I am enough for Him. Why can't He be enough for me? Why must I keep seeking after boys. After acceptance. After adventure. After dreams. All I gotta do is seek after God.

And so as I come up out of the water tomorrow, a new creation, I am determined to leave behind the lies, and devote myself to believing the truths.

A day doesn't go by where I don't think about my life after this place. I'm reading a book called Crazy Love right now and I just finished a book called Same Kind of Different as Me. Both talk about living as a radical. Defying the luke-warm and challenging the social boundaries that are built between the haves and the have nots. I can't wait to be without shelter. Dwelling in the presence of society's untouchables. Sharing stories. Sharing food. Sharing love.

I'm scared out of my mind. But as I cast off my coat of deceit in the river tomorrow, so I clothe myself with compassion, and faith like I've never had it before.

Seeking like I've never sought. Ready or not, here I come.