This is possibly the best use of post-it-notes i have ever seen. Go france.

The week of wilderness paintball camp is over. It is kind of an amazing feeling to be done with it, since i can finally start the long journey back home. It is an odd thing being homesick, since i have never had a place that i missed or wanted to go to, since i have never had a home before. Jackson has quickly become my home, though. Since i long to go back and see my house, my friends, my routines, all of it.

Wilderness camp: basically, we had the dream team of counselors, since we all knew each other and had worked together before and we all have the same focus. on top of that we had the dream team of campers for the most part. For the first two days i did virtually no work and had very little interaction with the campers and i was just being apathetic. then we had a fight break out between two campers on wednesday afternoon. That was basically a doorway to getting into the real issues into their heart and then we had more fights break out and more and more and more heart issues coming out and more and more and more opportunities to tell them about jesus and confront some of the kids as their christian brothers, which was incredible. This was a wake up call for me, since i was just cruising through this week of camp without really going into any depth with the kids, i didn't want depth. in the end, god was going to do his work regardless of how i felt or what i wanted and he did. The most incredible moment was after a morning devotion two kids who were open non-chrisitians talked to a counselor and said they wanted to talk to their aunt about becoming christians and they wanted to accept jesus into their life. it was increible to see God work through us like that.

To change subjects, what about joy and passion? i feel like a lot of us, including me have lost our joy and passion in the christian life. what i mean by that is like when paul tells us to be prepared to give an answer for our hope and joy. how often do you or i get asked from people why we have so much joy or hope? I have experienced that incredible joy, since i went through most of my life not seeing color. I struggled with depression to the point of where i could not see color. when all that changed is when i started to realize how much i was forgiven. a year and a half ago i had messed up really badly and it took several months, but God compelled me to accept his forgiveness. After that, i saw color for the first time. it is the most amazing thing to see a tree actually be green instead of being a shade of grey. The reason why i bring this up is we all have such sin focused lives that we forget to look at grace. we forget, i forget.

Living in guilt, in the end, is selfish. All sin, past, present, and the ones we have not done yet are paid for. We tend to focus on our sin, make a list of our top five struggles, and work on those struggles. i am all for that, but in the midst of working on this, we forget to look at grace. What are our top five ways we express and receive grace? logically if we are focusing more and more on christ we are going to sin less, and i am a guilt ridden person who struggles to accept that he is forgiven. I am though and the future grace Christ will give me when it is time is huge an amazing thought all the more. To be straight, this isn't a license to sin and if you see it as one you have never felt what grace actually is or actually seen your sin nature.

In the end, this gift is such an amazing joy in my life. I have found one thing and only one thing that i deserve: death. Everything beyond that is grace and i have been given eternal life, perfect body and being in heaven, and forgiveness here. I can't help, but grin ear to ear right now. This is amazing grace indeed. for every look at sin you take, take 20 looks at our amazing grace from jesus.