A Joyful Season

This blog post took me longer to write than I originally planned. The last 14 months have been monumentally life changing to say the least. In May of 2017 I was in the darkest place I have ever been in - ashamed and guilty because I had lost focus on what really mattered (I was seeing the glass half empty instead of half full) and my definition of love had gotten flipped upside down and twisted. I wasn’t loving myself, my family, and others the way God intended. Last May I started over with a blank canvas - and going into senior year with a blank canvas is both terrifying and frustrating. The only things I knew for sure on that first day of school was that I had a great friend group, volleyball team, and family supporting me, that I was going to Trevecca the following year, and that God was with me. My senior year was the best year of my life- I know that’s very cliché and that I said the same thing about junior year (PSA it wasn’t really all that great of a year). I was making senior year my own and following the Spirit. I stepped outside of my comfort zone and joined basketball, which I’m convinced was the second best decision I’ve ever made, after following Jesus of course. I went to as many church youth events as I could, soaking up every “last” I could get my hands on. When 2018 rolled around, I was ready for the year that would change my life… I just didn’t realize how many changes were headed my way. In the past 7 months, it seems like every stable thing that I could count on has suddenly changed. Allow me to explain… In February my youth pastor who has been there for me for every step since the sixth grade announced he was taking a senior pastor position. I had to say goodbye to my home for the past 14 years and all of the amazing friends that went with it. (Side note - graduating was literally the greatest experience of my entire life. I have never felt so proud of myself and free at the same time. Plus graduating at church was a pretty stellar experience. Also I’m very thankful for my parents who helped me throw my graduation/birthday party because even though it rained the whole night, I’ve never felt so loved and thankful for the blessings in my life. The feelings wrapped up in graduation and the joy I felt also showed me that a lot had changed in a year… my life was back on the right track again so thanks God.) God also answered two of my prayers/questions when it came to my past relationship and the one I will hopefully have in the future. He also introduced me to lifestyle changes at camp and a conference called Six8 Fellowship that happens at Trevecca (I’ll elaborate on those more in a minute). Another change that has come has to do with my Mom’s health. She was diagnosed last year with a condition called radiation neuropathy - this is a side effect of being a cancer survivor. It basically means that the amount of radiation that they treated her with when she had a brain tumor at age 12 and when she had cancer back in 2009 was too much for her body and her nerves are starting to shut down. This condition shows itself in symptoms of other diseases. For example, I’ve thought she might have Alzheimer's for the past few years because she has a hard time remembering names and small details. She also frequently falls when she loses her balance or when her hip doesn’t raise each leg the same width off of the ground. To add to that, the company that she and I work for is moving to Miami, meaning that she’s joining disability and I’m joined the unemployment line right before college. I’m not writing this for your sympathy because our family is more thankful than ever for the time we get to share together. Plus even though Mom has radiation neuropathy, she’s still got plenty of years left. However, the Wigart's are more aware of our time ticking by so we took a trip to Wisconsin to see half of our family a few weeks ago. That trip quickly turned into one of my favorite family vacations. Mom, Dad, and I are even gonna take one more trip before school starts - a cruise to Alaska. Seeing the whales and the glaciers has been on mom’s bucket list for years and since this is probably the last year where she’ll be able to walk around by herself, Dad has pulled out all of the stops. It’s actually been really sweet watching them get so excited for this trip these past few months! To highlight one more very obvious change that’s approaching in my life… college is a thing. I don’t think I’m necessarily scared or nervous - it helps that Trevecca is literally my dream school… but this new kind of independence is fascinating to me. I already have a strong group of mentors and friends going into this and God has certainly provided in the financial aspect of things, but this much responsibility and freedom is honestly intimidating. I’ve never been this excited and more at peace for a new season!
Now for the information I originally wanted to communicate -
This summer has been absolutely amazing. I got to spend 3 weeks at Camp Garner Creek - one as a high school camper and two as a counselor (middle school and tween). I got closer with my friends, met some new mentors, spent time with my roommate, and maybe met a new college best friend. During my time at the campground, I started taking my devotional life seriously. I discovered how refreshing it can be and for the first time in my life, I wake up every day longing for that time with God. It’s been so great to explore different ways where I can grow closer to him through the simple and ordinary. I also figured out at camp that my minor will definitely be youth ministry and not children’s. Don’t get me wrong, the tweens were so fun and it was an amazing week but my heart lies with youth. Thrown in the middle of these weeks of camp was VBS where I got to spend another week watching God open the eyes of my sweet preschoolers. We were in Babylon learning about Daniel and I can’t wait to continue to watch my little ones grow closer to the same God who provided for Daniel so well. I also got to learn about God’s provision in a slightly different way at Six8 Fellowship. I was skeptical going into this week long intensive because of my past experiences. Last year was Six8’s first year of existence and when I went, it made me question everything. I left heartbroken and overwhelmed and tried to suppress memories because the week had pushed me past my comfort zone and to the next continent! This year we talked about Creation Care. I wasn’t very excited going into the conference and thought we’d be talking about a “liberal agenda” all week. However, within the first two days the Lord had convicted my heart. I was looking at this topic like it was basic and needed no attention when God had brought me there for a reason. All week I wrestled with the reality that this growing population is killing our world and that food can be tied into almost every controversial issue right now in politics. I met new friends and grew stronger in my “liberalistic conservative” beliefs. Since coming home, things have changed a lot. I’m not moving to South America to start up a farm and feed half the world’s population but I’m dreaming small. I’ve made the decision to be conscious of the companies I buy from (try it if you dare). I’ve also ditched plastic water/soda bottles completely. When we go out to eat, I’m bringing my own take home containers so I don’t have to waste that styrofoam or plastic take home box. I’m using reusable grocery bags and taking a weekly visit to the Farmer’s Market. I pray for my food differently, intentionally thinking about the journey my food has taken to reach my plate and bless me with energy for a few hours. Finally, my family and I are starting to explore what truly practicing Sabbath would really look like. Yesterday was our first time trying it and it was actually really fun. We had a devotional time together, shared a meal at home instead of out at a restaurant, and talked about life. While I’m not sure how this practice will look once I go to college, I know that I’ve learned so much about a new lifestyle that I feel called to this summer. I’ve been challenged to be intentional and conscious with my food and with my relationship with God. While college is scary and staring me straight in the face, I know that I’m about to enter and invest into the best years of my life. Thanks for taking the time to read this and support me. Have a great last few weeks of summer!

Puerto Rico Part 2: Stars

If you've already read part 1, looked at the title, or follow me on social media, you probably know that I recently returned with my family to the place where my mom was born, Puerto Rico. Mom has a friend, Orlando, who happens to own a nice speed boat (he's also won competitions around the island when it comes to the fastest boat so that's cool!). Every time we go down, a drive to the southern town of Salinas is always on the to-do list to see Orlando. My parents, Titi Alba, my younger cousin Barbara, and I all packed up and drove down to Salinas and loaded up the boat. Orlando took us out to a clump of mangrove trees that was shallow where boaters like to go and camp out on sunny days. There were about twenty boats on the day that we went. (Side note: we tied our boat up next to one of the boats belonging to a friend of Orlando's who told me that I was so white that I blinded him). We spent the day looking for shells, eating snacks, swimming around, and relaxing in the water. At about 5 we left for a restaurant that waited for us a little bit further down the coast. While we were at the restaurant, Barbara and I spotted this beautiful sunset falling into place. We went out and snapped some pictures and just stood watching it. As the sun sank lower, Orlando and my family walked toward us saying they were ready to jump back in the boat and head back. Personally, I was a little intimidated by the idea of Orlando driving back as dusk turned into night (especially after how many beers I'd seen him down that day... don't worry though, it was a safe number I think). The boat had two lights to indicate to other boat drivers that we were in fact a boat... a very fast-moving boat, but there was no big spotlight to see what was directly in front of us and I had no idea how he knew where he was going. But I stretched my arm out over the edge of the boat, a practice that I often replicate while driving down the road on those days that I want to feel weightless. As the boat bounced over waves, I felt like I was flying. Then I looked up and saw a sight that took my breath away - dozens of stars twinkling down at me. I kept my eyes glued on the sky until we got back to the dock. At one point, I turned around and was in awe at the collection that had been forming behind me. Behind me was every star I had seen. Above me were a few more to add to the collection. However, in front of me, there were almost no stars as they were covered up by dust in the air... but as we got closer to this empty void, I saw even more stars. It brought me to the realization that is similar, but slightly different from the conclusion I found in part 1. I could look at the past, everything that had come before that moment. It was beautiful and some stars shone brighter than others. The stars directly above me in the present were not as numerous or as brilliant looking as the display behind me, but I knew they would only add to my experience later. The stars in my future were unclear... it was dark and intimidating and I didn't like focusing on it. When it boils down to relating to life, you can always look back and see all the good and bad that has come before and see the beautiful picture that is your life. You can look at your unknown future, knowing it will be even more magnificent than your past, but it's scary to focus on and should not be focused on 24/7 unless you want to be driven mad by that void. Lots of us, especially speaking for myself, find ourselves in a place that we don't necessarily like. It's not as beautiful as the past. It's hard and life might just suck. I want to focus on the future or the past to escape the present. However, none of my efforts will change the reality. The stars above me are going to add to my collection of stories and I just have to deal with the hardships right now and wait patiently to see what kind of beauty and good that God will bring out of it. But no matter how bright a certain star shines, each is important and adds to the breath-taking beauty that I will see one day when I look back at my life… beauty that you could see when you look back at yours.

Puerto Rico Part 1: Swept Away

I recently took a trip to the island where my mother was born and raised: Puerto Rico. During our time on the island, mom decided that it would be fun to stay in a resort. We drove from Bayamon, an area on the north-east side of the island where my mom grew up (it's near San Juan), to the west side of the island to a town called Rincon (There should be accents on this and Bayamon, but I don't really know Spanish that well. Sorry :)). The group consisted of my parents, my little cousin Barbara, my "Titi" (aunt) Alba, and myself. We ate incredible food, went snorkeling off the coast, visited a local crafts fair, and watched a sunset by a lighthouse. It was all amazing, but my favorite part was just walking by the ocean at our resort. This was mom's least favorite part because her balance is not the best and she would almost fall every time the wave retreated and the sand moved from beneath her feet. But here is this ocean, relentlessly beating up against this beach. Every time I looked down, I saw sand particles that may never be all together at one time ever again. Each wave hit my legs and feet and was so powerful that it could have knocked ME over. The ocean reminds me of what life is like. Everyday things are changing... the past will never fully repeat itself. Trying to hold on to the past is useless because the waves of life, just like the waves of the ocean, will pull that sand right out of your hand or right out from under your feet. You can't worry about the future either because there are billions upon billions of other sand particles out there and it's pointless to try to guess which particles will hit your feet at the same time. The only thing we have any power over is the present - relaxing in the wave that hits you in that moment and saying goodbye as it pulls the old sand away, promising to come back soon with new sand. The wave is God's love and I'm sure that most of you reading this have heard this analogy used before. God's love is strong, powerful, and relentless. No matter how you hard you try to fight it, to tell that wave to stay in the ocean and away from you, it won't listen. God's love gets you soaked sometimes, if the wave is big enough. Sometimes it takes a little more than a splash to wake us up to what he's trying to say... and he will always deliver that wave to you. Finally, God is always orchestrating our little details, our little grains of sand. He gives and he takes away. What he takes away, you cannot hold onto... and why would you want to? Why would you want to hold onto the old when he has something gloriously new ready to give you? Let go of the worries of the past and future and let God walk with you down the beach, crashing his love over you in the present. 

Imperfect: a life story

Just something to consider:

Moments of imperfection remind us who we are:

We are sinners - imperfect because of nature, our choices

We are a hot mess and have little self-control or patience or love or joy or hope or faith or any other qualities that God constantly possess that we often lack. 

We chose this - we make choices because that's the kind of God He is... he didn't want mindless robots, he wanted relationships with us... and relationships are messy. Every time we sin, we fall, we betray the trust of others around us and we smack Christ in the face because each failure of ours was a lashing, a hit of the hammer on the nail. 

BUT our God is the strongest, the most courageous, the most selfless, and the most compassionate God there is. He loves us so much - even through our pain, our faults, our flaws, our mistakes, our short tempers, our dirty mouths, and our habits - HE LOVES US THROUGH IT ALL. And he makes us new every morning - he makes us better- he makes us beautiful. 

Think of a door - but not just any door. Think of a door that has chipped paint, imperfections, rough edges. We are that door. We have scars and pasts that mark us up. When we focus on the rough spots, we lose sight of the fact that those marks don't define us. We are all flawed but our purpose is still clear - we are a door. Splinters or chipping paint don’t make a door any less of a door. Don't focus on those things that make us human because we forget so easily that our true purpose is to act as a door between the world and our God - we introduce others to him through our scars because people who don't have hope long for those who have struggled with the same things they have. People who are hopeless are looking for love - they want something that is familiar. They look for people who won't make fun of their scars because those imperfect but loving people know what it's like to have chips and splinters. 

We bend, but we never have to break because he is strong enough to take our burdens. We will still have struggles, we'll have moments when we lose our tempers or when we turn from him because we're angry at our life circumstances. But he will always be there and when we focus on him we will realize that through our mistakes we learn, we grow, we inspire others to do the same. Through our failings, we can be brought closer and we can draw others near too IF and ONLY IF we can respond properly to our flaws. We all know our failings but we must proactively look for preventative ways to overcome them and live with them as things that don’t hinder us but instead make us stronger. We must follow the will of God and read his word and he will tell us how to respond to these situations. We won't always respond perfectly, but we will continue to learn every day until we are taken up and glorified with the one who makes everything good. Accept your flaws. Learn to watch for the warning signs that you're going down a path of bad thoughts or dangerous actions. Ask God for the wisdom, understanding, patience, and strength to resist Satan. That is how you learn to live with the mess we call our lives - our failings, our mistakes - our HUMANITY. And then you can discover true joy as you accept you for the person God made you to be and grow closer to your good, good father. 

Growing Up

Junior year: the hardest academic year of your life prior to college (according to just about everyone I've talked to). That was the definition that looked me straight in the face last August. I distinctly remember a conversation with my mom and my dad that came up repeatedly and it went like this... Parents: Erica... you're doing too much this year. You have volleyball, Legacy (show choir), the fall play, and academics. You need to drop out of at least one because you're going to be too stressed out and busy to give all of them 110% effort.

Erica: I'm gonna do all of it without getting stressed out. WATCH ME. 

Parents: Alright but don't come crying to me when you get all stressed out because I'm going to say 'I told you so'

I did have a lot on my plate, I'll admit - more than I've ever had before. In the past I've dealt with Legacy and volleyball but never the fall play along with AP U.S. History and two Dual Enrollment classes (English and Chemistry). Did I get stressed out a lot? Occasionally (aka yes, definitely), but I never let my parents see that they had been right. I stood my ground and pushed through. I organized my time well and did the work that I had to do to be able to give each activity 110% - I grew up in this aspect. Being involved in the play was a bigger blessing than I could have ever foreseen. I got to know Charles Pearce Smith V, the person who I just celebrated six months with. During the sixteen years of life that I had lived before Junior year I had taken note of the boys that surrounded me - characteristics that I liked and didn't. So many times before I had settled for less than my list of now high expectations. A boy that I would consider dating must be respectful - of personal boundaries, authority figures, of me, and of themselves. He should always strive to be honest, trustworthy, genuine, compassionate, charitable, selfless, patient, joyful, faithful, humble, gentle, generous, intelligent, and most importantly, Christian. Not just the "oh yeah, I go to church" Christian but the kind of person that pursues God actively. This past weekend was Spiritual Renewal at my church and the speaker told us his "guide to dating" that he has shared with his own teenage daughter. He said that "if you want to be in a dating relationship, you run as hard and as fast as you can after God. After you've got a good pace going, you look around you or in front of you and if you see any boys nearby, you can talk to them... but never look behind you." I absolutely loved this because Charlie happened to be with me at the time and he's a runner. Not to mention the fact that Charlie is the only teenage male that I have ever met that is actually running faster than me (he would deny that, but it's so true). So yes, one of the reasons this year has been the best year of my life is because of the amazing friendship that I have with Charles. Another reason is that it hasn't been as hard as everyone says it is. This may be because it's actually not that difficult and everyone else was just dramatic or it might be because by the grace of God and help from Charlie, every day I've looked at my circumstances with a positive perspective. I've seen life the last six months as a stellar gift that keeps getting better as it goes by. Another reason why this year has been spectacular is the fact that health miracles have occurred. For those of you who don't know, my mom had to have her Gallbladder removed and during the procedure the surgeon found gangrene. He removed it before it had a chance to burst (that would have been messy) and mom made a full recovery. About a month later, she started having significant hearing loss. The doctors thought that there might have been a tumor restricting her hearing - all tumors of course having the possibility of being cancerous. Further investigation proved that she had no cancer and no tumor at all - just hearing loss at a really young age. Yet another possible reason why this year has been the best yet is that I've learned who my real friends are. I broke off a toxic relationship that I had been apart of since I was four. It was really hard - the decision and also the aftermath. I probably could have handled it better in the moment but since then so much negativity and feelings of low self esteem have left me. I've found five really good friends that are girls at my school with several more at church as well as, of course, Charlie and his friends at his church. My final explanation to the abnormality of an amazing junior year is the fact that my God is so good. At the start of last August I had just come out of a not so great season of life - a real time of growth and listening to the whispers that God sent my way. This has been a season of learning the difference between hope and faith. While this lesson is certainly not over yet, it has been a peaceful blessing so far. I was given the opportunity to job shadow Trevecca's chapel coordinator, Shawna Gaines. It was a humbling week that I got the privilege to experience thanks to my school's program that all juniors complete called Career Exploration. I found out that I don't know everything about the Bible (crazy concept - I know) and that Trevecca is actually a school (yes, another crazy concept). Up until this point I've been the know-it-all at school - even earning nicknames like "Trevecca Wizard" and "Teen Jesus". Plus I've always seen Trevecca as a summer camp, picturing the atmosphere at TNT@TNU and Y.E.S. Conference. Meeting professors and students, sitting in a college class, and being surrounded by it's atmosphere for a week confirmed to me that I want to go to TNU for college. I also got to meet Lauren Daigle when she came for chapel, a dream come true for me. I even got to sit in on a meeting for those interviewing for their district license in ministry. I won't be able to interview until next year at the earliest but I got to read the constitution of the Church of the Nazarene and find out a few more of the steps that lie in my future. My junior year has definitely been the best year yet. God has been so present in my life, my family, and my relationships. He's helped me grow up into the best version of myself. Now I face the scary possibilities tied to Dad's double knee replacement surgery that happens in seven hours and another scary health situation that I'll keep as a silent request for now. But this is all apart of life - growing up - the testing of my faith. I wouldn't change these circumstances that I find myself in for the world. 

10 - 12 Weeks

I have just recently finished a journey, a season in my life which I have decided to entitle "10 - 12 weeks". 12 weeks ago on April 13, 2016 I had had a really rough week. From an outside perspective (also known as Instagram) it certainly didn't look like a rough week. The previous weekend had been TNT @ TNU 2016 where I won first place senior youth preaching. It had been my third year in a row winning the first place title, but my first year competing in the senior youth category. It was a really big deal for me. It had also been a great weekend because I had been able to catch up with some of my dearest friends that are on the East Tennessee district. I had met them at Y.E.S. conference 2014, a conference for high schoolers who felt called into ministry. It really was a fantastic weekend full of fun times with people like Jacob, Emily, Jonathon, Gracie, Zander, and Darby. However, the days that would follow would be very frustrating. 

For months before TNT @ TNU 2016 I had started to feel like God was pulling me away from my home church, Nashville First Church of the Nazarene. When I had first felt that pull I told God he was crazy. I volunteered in the preschool department every Sunday morning, organizing games and telling stories to children that ranged from ages 2 to 6. I was a very active member in my youth group, attending as many trips as I could. I had grown up in that church and my life practically revolved around it seeing as my father was the facilities manager (meaning I was always there). I didn't want to leave NFCN... that is until April 13. I was furious with some of the teens in my grade. My friend Mark and I were bickering over the stupidest things that happened to concern my friends from the East Tennessee District. At the moment I was sick and tired of how my youth group would say inappropriate things at inappropriate times. I found myself thinking that I was more mature than them and I no longer wanted to be in a place where I found myself "surrounded by child-like people" and where I felt unloved and unwanted. I begged my parents to let me start coming to their Sunday school class, something they never allowed me to do in an on-going basis. In seeing how upset I was, they said yes. I had this big picture in my mind of how I would continue working in preschool during the Sunday morning service, go to Sunday school with my parents rather than with the teens, and I would slowly stop coming on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. This was my solution; however there was a problem with it. A girl who feels called into ministry really needs to be more involved in church than just Sunday morning. I also wanted to continue going to the wonderful events that Nazarenes had come up with: camps, mission trips, and especially TNT @ TNU so that I could continue preaching on this level. I talked to my two youth pastors about it, Matt Taylor and Shane Tarter. I talked to people who I looked up to about what I was going through. This included my father and teachers and administrators at school. I was told to pray about it. Not just pray once or twice in one day to come up with a decision, but to really REALLY pray hard about it. I began praying and in one week God had spoken in miraculous ways already. He had told me to talk to Mark, forgive him, and to ask for forgiveness myself. I did just that and I started writing too. It's in the format of a little book and the title says "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" In this book I wrote down my prayers and I made a pro/con list of staying and leaving. I took more notes in church and I wrote down a list of people who reached out and told me they were praying for me. This was of course in response to a Facebook post asking for prayer on a big decision. Only four people who were involved with the situation told me that they were praying for me. The rest of those who responded were adults in the church who I had friendships with, family members, adults at my school, Donelson Christian Academy, all of my friends from East Tennessee, and students from another youth group that I had been attending on Friday nights. (I'll talk about that later). Also in this book I wrote down my options. My options included: stay at NFCN, but don't get involved in youth group, stay in the preschool department but discontinue attendance at NFCN, move to a different local Nazarene church, move to the East Tennessee district, stay in the Midsouth district, or I could start going to Eastgate. Eastgate is the other church I attended on Friday nights. A good friend, Corey Miranne, had first taken me there towards the end of my freshman year of high school. I fell in love with the people there and with the worship. The worship reminded me of the music that we hear at church camp. Ask any teen in the NFCN youth group and they'll tell you that when we're at camp, God shows up in amazing ways, especially through the music. The music at NFCN wasn't like camp music and that experience with God through music was what I had been searching for. Eastgate was starting to look like an amazing option. Also in this little book were words that I had gotten from God. Bible verses, advice from people, song lyrics, and little phrases that had popped into my head filled page after page in this book. Within the first week of writing in "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" God had let two Bible stories come to mind. The first was the story of Abraham and the second was the story of Jonah. Was I being called out of my comfort zone and everything I was familiar with to follow God in faith? Or was I like Jonah, running from a mission field that God had provided for me. I prayed that I was Abraham, but God told me I was Jonah. I decided to give my youth group another chance, and I'm glad that I did.

While at Eastgate one Friday night, the worship band sang this song. The name of God, Adoni, was repeated over and over again and something about it stood out to me. I went and asked one of the adult leaders whose name is Aaron what Adoni meant. I thought it would have some incredible hidden meaning that would reassure me that I was making the right choice in staying in the Midsouth district (at the moment I was still struggling with the possibility of going to Eastgate full time). All Aaron told me was that Adoni was one of the holiest names of the Lord. However, I knew that there had to be more than that. Life continued and the next week I went back to school. Our show choir was helping set up for the Spring Musical, The Wizard of Oz. During fourth period I was walking with some of my friends to bring props down to the gym where setup was going strong. I walked past a classroom and inside was one of my favorite teachers at DCA, Karen Singer, my 9th and 10th grade Bible teacher. She called me inside where three senior sat. I had just walked into her Hebrew class. She told one of the boys, Dajuan, to recite a blessing in Hebrew that they had just learned. As he spoke I heard the name again, Adoni. However, I was not thinking of the previous Friday night and I continued with my day. That night I read over "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" and I saw "Adoni". The next day after school I walked into Mrs. Singer’s classroom and asked her about the prayer. I asked her what Adoni meant. She said that the Hebrew people knew that their God's name was Yahweh (YHWH); however, the name was so holy that they could not speak it out loud so they created a new name for God, Adoni. I asked her what the prayer meant and as she repeated it in English, the words were very similar to the lyrics of an Irish Blessing that the choir always sings at DCA Graduation. The blessing that we sing goes like this: May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May rain fall softly on your fields until we meet again. May God hold you in the palm of his hand. Amen. Even though we sing this to our seniors who are departing God told me that it was a blessing to stay. Not just stay in the Midsouth district but also to stay at NFCN. I struggled through some doubt for the next few weeks and then I went through a six week period of time where life was amazing. I didn't talk to God as much as I needed to but I was too busy to worry about it. God was pretty silent until church camp started. I've already posted about church camp on my blog but I will reiterate some highlights. I realized that the reason I couldn't fully surrender my life to God was because I felt hurt by and afraid of Him. I had a relationship with the rules, not with the ruler. At camp I realized that God was not angry with me and that he is a spirit that moves. God allows things to happen but he does not cause them to happen. There's a difference and that difference was what allowed me to completely surrender to him that Thursday night. God redefined himself for me. Oh, and this was just what I learned on Monday. Tuesday I realized that if I was acting the same way as kids at my school who proclaim to be atheists, then I am a child of the devil more than I am a child of God. That I "shouldn't purposefully sin" just because I knew that God would forgive me later. I decided on that day to stop pushing God to the limit because as Corey Miranne once said "You don't know your limits until you get there and by that time it's too late". The speaker at camp, Eric Samuel Timm, said "Are you living in community or searching for it? Because when the storm comes, you'll know". I realized that I had been searching for it, but that I had also found it and it had been right in front of my eyes, meaning that I had been living at the edge of the community, not in it. I learned that comparison kills community. On Wednesday I realized that we all fool ourselves into believing in the idea that we have plenty of time, but we don't. And we don't want to be woken up by the alarm clock of tragedy, like the events that happened in our country this week in Louisiana and Minnesota and Dallas. Time is invested, not spent. Invest time in the silence of God because to listen to God we must be silent. Have you ever noticed that if you rearrange the letters in the word 'listen' you get the word 'silent'? I also learned that my faith had to be my own faith. Finally I learned that you can't give God your left over change and expect change in yourself. We must actively pursue him. On Thursday I learned that there’s a difference in Knowledge and Action. I knew that I needed to surrender but until I did, there would be no change in me. The final lesson I learned at camp on Friday is a lesson that we all need to hear in light of the shootings that happened in the last week: in this time of tragedy God wants us to be a light in the darkness. However, we are not supposed to be spot lights that blind people and make them uncomfortable. But, we're not supposed to be refrigerator lights either: lights that shine when confronted with a dark world or with the calling of Jesus into their lives. The light we're called to be is a fire, because God is a constant fire. Light dispels fear in times of trouble. Light is love and perfect love casts out all fear. That was Camp. The next week I dove into Y.E.S. conference 2016.

At Y.E.S conference God tested me. Usually when he speaks to me he is close and he is clear. At YES it was like he took a few steps back and whispered things to me. I hated it. I took notes that week, but nothing spoke to me. However, I knew that when God called me back to those notes in the future, I would find wisdom in them. That turned out to be true. Today, July 9, 2016 I spent an hour talking and listening to God and reviewing everything I had learned and experienced this summer. Reading those notes today, wisdom popped off the page and flew straight at me. This is what God revealed to me today: Jeff Stark, one of the speakers at YES said this: "When the one who spoke the world into being speaks and invites you into your reason of being, nothing will ever be the same". It's my quote of the summer because I've had so many moments that were defining moments, and nothing will ever be the same. The next lesson is in response to the shootings (God really did speak to me a lot about these shootings before they even happened!) I learned that when all you see around you is bad it's hard to think that good can come out of it. People say "how can a good God let these bad things happen?" Well when someone asks you that question (I have been asked it many times already), there is finally a correct response: "When are we going to stop blaming God for the things we caused? The world is bad because we have failed to join God in fixing it." At YES I prayed to God that he would show me the brokenness of the reality around me and that he would break my heart for what broke his own. I obviously got what I prayed for. I realized that everyone has to go through and see and feel the evil in this world to be better equipped so that the next time that evil comes around, we know how to deal with it. I also realized that my ministry may never look like the ministry of those who went before me because I am called to be creative. Not to mention that if we keep doing ministry the way it's always been done before, we will also get the same results as before. The world is ever-changing and the church of tomorrow needs to curve our ministry to deal with the problems that we face in this day and age to get life changing results. The message doesn’t change; just the mode of delivery. Another thing I learned was that I need to dedicate myself to one area of ministry, a ministry that was later revealed to me as youth ministry. That's right, after 8 years of "feeling called into everything" God finally narrowed it down to youth. Yet another thing I learned was that this world is ever-changing but God is never-changing. He will always be here so I never have to fear. Sometimes all I'm going to have is my story and my calling. I will have to hold tight to it, but it will always be there. For every bad day there will always be more good days. I learned that I'm called into youth ministry, but I'm going to call it by a different name: EVANGALISM. I learned that our job as pastors and evangelists is to get people close to Jesus. However, we can't do the saving. We can just get them close enough so that Jesus can save in a way that only he can. I will faithfully follow him and be ready for evil because it's just what I do. 

If you thought summer was already good, wait until I tell you what I learned in Costa Rica and in the days following.

Many of you probably heard that I got a parasite while I was in Costa Rica. Everyone has come up to me and said "I hope you get better" or "How's Gringo?" (that's what I nicknamed my parasite). People have also said that it was really unfortunate for me to have gotten this while I was ministering. Well, I thank God all the time for Gringo. Through Gringo I learned that when you're in ministry, it's not all going to go according to plan. Sometimes you're going to be sick of helping people or preaching or doing the same routine every day. Some days you might be physically sick, but you always have to take time to take care of yourself and your family. If you fail yourself or your family, your ministry has failed also. While having a parasite wasn't fun, it didn't get in the way of my trip. The idea of my sickness being a parasite wasn't even brought up until we were in the airport heading back home. While we were there I believed that the sickness was a bug I had gotten from the dairy products I had consumed, at least that's what the doctor said. Because I thought it was a simple bug and because I didn't want to complain in front of my friends, I didn't think about the sickness so therefore it had little to no effect on my trip. The main things I learned in Costa Rica were these: what real love, joy, and faithfulness looks like. Real love: I saw a never ending love in the people. They loved each other and God with this passion that I want to pursue. God also revealed to me what a relationship with a boy should look like at this great age of 16. I don't need a boyfriend. I need friends that can be boys but can also be girls. I need these friends to help me in my walk with Christ and to help me get through Junior and Senior year. That is all I need, along with Jesus and my parents. There is no room for the complication of a boyfriend and therefore I will not have one (at the moment). Real joy: the people there have so little but at the same time they have so much. I saw this mainly in a little boy named Andy. One night the boys were playing soccer. I was wearing a skirt but I tried to play too. My friends Joy Diehl and Matthew Parker were off to the side throwing a football around with this little boy. They would occasionally call me over to translate with my ever so amazing (but also lacking) broken Spanish. Andy is 9. He has two sisters and he lives close to the church. He likes to play soccer and football and he has a love for life. We picked him up and swung him around the room. We tossed him footballs and ran as he chased after us. I love Andy and I'm so thankful for the way that God showed me that there is joy in everything. Finally, real faithfulness: one of the adults on our trip was Jack Galloway. He’s one of the most humble, giving, and compassionate people I know. One night he walked outside. We were all inside playing soccer. Under a little pavilion there were Costa Ricans that were singing and praying. They had dedicated that evening to praying and worshipping God, something that we Americans need to be doing on a regular basis. Jack sat down with them and throughout the night he was moved by the Holy Spirit, moving through them and their worship. He later learned that those people were members of the church's work and witness team. They needed a bus to continue their ministry and they were praying that God would be faithful. Within 24 hours Jack and his daughter Faith (one of my friends on the trip) were meeting with them, telling the team that they were going to give them enough money for a new bus. God was faithful. I also saw other acts of God's faithfulness in the testimonies of Johnny, Kim and Patrick, and James. Johnny is the pastor of the church and one night he told us how the church came to be. Kim and Patrick are the missionaries there. They told us about their call and how God was faithful to them and how he guides them soon back to the United States. Finally, James is their oldest son and one of my closest friends. He told me how God spoke to him a year ago at Nazarene Youth Conference. My youth group was there too along with more than 7000 Nazarenes. All of us were touched by God in amazing ways that week in Louisville. James was called into ministry there. My call into ministry was confirmed there. James feels called to help the homeless, a mission that he actively pursues in Costa Rica and will continue to pursue when he returns to Chicago in August. In these stories of faithfulness I learned that God will be faithful to me: in my life, in my call, in my future... he will always be there.

That was Costa Rica. In the week that followed this amazing trip Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were shot by police officers. Then at a peaceful protest in Dallas, a sniper targeted police that were there protecting the people that were protesting against them. 14 people were shot and at the moment 5 police officers have died. They gave their lives to protect people who were angry at “their kind”, the men who wear blue. That represents Christ to me because he also died for people who hated him. Yesterday I woke up and I watched the news. I got angry at this monstrosity that has happened. So I sat down and wrote a spoken word poem:
One second. A life changing decision in one second. A single bullet. Because of the power that a single bullet carries... Alton Sterling will never see his son graduate. Philando Castile will never marry Diamond Reynolds. Brent Thompson will never hold his young grandson in his arms again. In a matter of days so many lives have been lost and while they all came from different places and different backgrounds they all had a few things in common. First of all their blood was red. Their red blood was shed on the streets that we walk and drive down every day. Don't we realize that their blood was RED? There is no black blood or blue blood or white blood. Only red. Another similarity is not seen in these victims, but in the people that loved them. Their families and friends will soon gather in Texas, Minnesota, and Louisiana cemeteries to bury loved ones who died too young. The final thing they have in common is in the way they died. And I'm not talking about a gun. I'm talking about the hate filled people behind the triggers. Racism still exists today but there is something that drove these people that is even stronger still than the racism that flows deep in our countries veins. It is the feelings of fear and hopelessness and uncertainty. But no matter how strong these feelings get we as Americans must realize that violence is not the answer! Violence brings more violence and more fear and ultimately makes the situation worse. 

Some people say "take away guns" while others say "It's the person behind the gun that's the problem". If you are someone with one of these opinions, you're wrong. BOTH OPINIONS ARE WRONG! The enemy is not the color of our skin or the guns in our hands or the police or ISIS or bullying or suicide or murder or robbers or divorce or cancer. It's not Zika or Ebola. It’s not homosexuality or poverty or human trafficking or alcoholism or drug abuse or car crashes. Any evil that you see in this world... any evil that has affected you and broken your heart is NOT the enemy. The enemy is the one who gives us these emotions and feelings of fear and hatred and hopelessness and uncertainty and heart break. WE ARE FIGHTING THE DEVIL EVERYDAY! Every day is an uphill battle that we try to fight. Don't you understand that our words and our actions and our guns and our Facebook rants are never going to win this battle? We can't win because we're not strong enough. But there is someone who is strong enough to defeat this devil that plagues our world. In fact, he already did beat him... 2,000 years ago where love REALLY won. There is no reason for us to do this... to fight each other. So lay down your guns and your mouths filled with ammunition and realize that the greatest weapon we have is our trust in the Lord... the God who has overcome this world. What our country needs is warriors of prayer. We need people crying out to our God because if we do and if we trust in him, he will save us.

Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe you're not convinced by my words. If you're not convinced then check out HIS words... the words inspired by this God that is strong enough to save our nation. He never lies and he always has our best interest at heart...ALWAYS. He knows the plans he has for us and if you trust him... if you trust in this God you will never be disappointed. 

Check out these verses:

Ephesians 6:10-18/// 2 Chronicles 16:9/// James 3: 1-12/// Zephaniah 3:14-20/// Matthew 7: 1-14/// 3 John 1:11/// John 1:5/// 1 John 4:18-19

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The final thing I learned this summer so far is that there is a difference between HOPE and FAITH. I have been living in hope but I need to live in faith. You see, hope is wishing that something would happen while faith is knowing that our God is strong enough to make it happen. An analogy for this is well shown in the movie God's Not Dead. Reverend Dave and Reverend Jude had planned a trip to Disney World but the car continued to fail to start. Finally at the end of the movie, Reverend Jude has convinced Dave to try to start the car again. Dave drops his bags and heads for the driver’s seat, but Jude says "Wait. You have to put the bags in the trunk". Dave says "What's the point? The car's not going to start". Jude responds with "Put the bags in the trunk. It's an act of faith" (these lines are not exact, just pulled out of my memory). Spoiler alert: Dave put the bags in the trunk and the car started. You see Dave hoped the car would start while Jude had a strong faith that it would. This season of my life was a good one, something I'm very thankful for. God has revealed to me what the next season will be all about: learning how to have faith instead of just hoping in him and finding a healthy balance for both.

Thank you for taking the time to read about what God has done in my life for the past 12 weeks. 

Erica Janelle 

Camp at the Creek 2016

I figured you guys would want to know what happened at camp. While I was at camp Gardner Creek I completely surrendered my life to Christ, something I have struggled with for 8 years. That's half of my life people! Here are the main points that I got from God this week because I've finally STOPPED doubting him and STARTED my new life where I'm completely surrendered to him. Here's what I learned:

God allows bad things to happen to us. He doesn't cause. We are a community of believers and we're better together. Time is never spent. It is invested so invest your time with God in silence. To listen you must be silent. (Listen and silent have the same letters. Have you ever noticed that?) You have 24 hours/dollars in one day. Where are you going to invest your money/time? Don't give God your left over change. Give him your whole dollars. Forgiveness brings happiness. (I forgave God for those bad things that he didn't cause but that I had blamed him for for these 8 years). There's a difference between knowledge and action. If you know how to swim but don't move your arms you'll drown. If you know you need to do more to follow Jesus but don't do it you won't get anywhere. We are light. Light can be seen (waves) and felt (particles). Sometimes light is seen and sometimes it's unseen, but it always needs to shine to illuminate the darkness. God doesn't call us to be a blinding and uncomfortable spot light. We aren't called to be refrigerator lights either... People that are only set on fire for Jesus when we are directly confronted with him. We are called to be a fire burning bright for him because he is an all consuming fire. Real light creates and sustains life and it dispels fear and it illuminates and gives direction. It also is warm and inviting. Be real fire! Real light. Don't dress up like a Christian. Be real. And finally I learned that God is incredibly in love with me. His Holy Spirit will be the fuel to my fire. He is GOOD. and he will NEVER LET ME DOWN. I surrendered to him because I know now that he didn't cause the cancer or Alzheimers or death or betrayal. He allowed it to happen to get me to this point. He loves me so much. I trust him with every part of my being. I'm ready to invest the time it takes to stay close with him. I love my lord Jesus so much and I'm ready for what the future holds.