The Gift of Feet

I know a lot of people who are completely grossed out by feet. I don't mind them, but other people's dirty feet can irritate me sometimes. This morning on my run, all I {mostly} thought about for seven miles was what a gift our feet are to us. If I didn't have two feet, I wouldn't get to do so many things I love! I couldn't drive, I couldn't feel the sand between my toes and the ocean, and I couldn't run! As I started to reflect on the last year, I realized I have run over 300 miles, ran two half marathons, am training for another one, and joined a crossfit gym. These are all things I love and am so incredibly blessed by the opportunity to do them. God has revealed so much to me on the journey of running, and now crossfitting, and I am so thankful for each step of the way.
Thinking about feet made me think about shoes and how blessed we are to have shoes to protect our feet when we go places. There are so many people in the world who do not have one pair of shoes and I have so many different kinds! WHAT A BLESSING!!! My favorites are definitely my rainbow flip flops, I don't go ANYWHERE without them! They are the absolute best. I also love my purple crossfit shoes. I love the bright color and love what I get to do when I wear them..except mountain climbers. Mountain climbers are my least favorite..give me burpees over mountain climbers any day! My running shoes that I got for my birthday last year and I have used for all my training and races, have run a lot of miles with me and they are something I will always be thankful for. They've taken me lots of places and experienced lots of things with me. I feel a sentimental attachment to these shoes because by the grace of God I have accomplished things I never in a million years thought I could do.
All this led me to think about how Jesus traveled many miles by foot. He was able to meet people and minister to the sick, poor, and hard to love as he traveled from town to town by foot. I am excited to see where God takes me as I journey through life!

So what I'm really trying to say is, I am extra thankful today that we have feet to run and feel the sand between our toes.

Praise Christ for the simplest blessings :)

Fall Leaves

This morning on my run, I was surprised to see so many fall leaves. While I know this favorite season of mine is in full swing, we live in California. So I wasn't really expected to see leaves falling from the trees until December. I mean it's supposed to be 80 this weekend! Despite the unpredictable weather in sunny Southern California, it actually felt like fall this morning! I couldn't resist going on a run! There were so many beautiful leaves on the ground I wanted to stop under every tree and pick up my favorites..though I refrained so I could get my miles in. However, when I was almost home, I did pause for a moment and pick up a leaf. I picked out this one leaf from all the rest that were there on the side of the road. It wasn't a perfectly colored and crunchy leaf, but I thought it was beautiful. Then it hit me. The way I see this leaf is the way God sees us. He pick us out from all the rest. He loves the way we look and the unique qualities that we have. Though we change like the seasons, he still loves us the same. He never changes. He remains constant as the seasons come and go. Sometimes leaves are green and beautiful and soaking up the sun and other times they fall down to the ground. The Creator of the seasons takes such delight in the beautiful we display whether we are luscious and green with blossoms in the spring or if we are brown and on the ground in the fall. He uses us to radiate who he is. Even the leaves lying in the street proclaim his beauty. God can use the simplest things to speak to us. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Dreaming of a Midwest fall,
Amanda

Summer Recap: GREATER GOD

This summer I got to be a part of a phenomenal staff of 50 people and work with hundreds of students during my nine weeks at Ponderosa Lodge at Mount Hermon. I could easily say, without hesitation, that this summer was the best summer of my life and I would not have changed a single thing about it! Not only did I get to work with amazing people and students, but I also got to live in the mountains, 15 minutes from the beach. Does it get much better than that?! I am so thankful for the incredible people I met, loved working with “big kids”, learned new things about myself and grew in my relationship with God in ways I never have before. Our summer theme for camp was UPSIDE DOWN, live like you belong to another world. After living in a colorful world that looked like a mix between an Alice in Wonderland scene and a Dr. Seuss book for two months, the transition home was more difficult than I anticipated. I went into minor culture shock as I returned to school about four hours after I got off a plane from camp. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my fellow Upside Downians and miss doing life and worshipping everyday with the remarkable brothers and sisters the Lord blessed me with this summer. As a staff, we focused on the theme “Great call, GREATER GOD.” This summer, God opened my eyes to what a GREAT God he truly is. This is not a lesson that ended August 18^th when I left Ponderosa Lodge with tears in my eyes. God has continued to reveal this to me as I’ve been back at school this year. Our God is greater than stress at work, feeling exhausted from lack of sleep, loads of homework, and details of planning a huge event. Each day I am blown away at the ways our God is working in our lives.

In continuing to learn about our GREATER God, he keeps reminding me to trust him. Because he is GREATER than anything we face, how can we not trust him?! So often I let little things get to me but this summer I began to learn how to let those things go and trust in the sovereignty of our GREATER God. This is definitely something I’m still working on!

Now that I’ve been home from camp for about month, I’ve had some time to process the amazing summer I had. A year ago this time, I had NO idea I would get to spend my summer the way I did. I had just started to think about maybe working at Mount Hermon and a friend encouraged me to do so. While he tried to tell me what a life changing experience it would be, nothing could prepare me for what the Lord had in store this summer. The last two summers I worked with elementary students doing day camps in Southern California and I thought is God really sending me to Northern California to work with junior high and high school students?! Are you sure God? Lots of people asked why I didn’t want to work with younger students and I told them I really felt called to work with older students this summer..even though the thought scared the living day lights out of me! I am still in awe of the ways God revealed himself to so many students and our staff this summer. Each day I heard incredible stories and saw lives being transformed. I am praying and hoping I can return for one more summer before “real life” begins after student teaching next fall but trusting that our GREATER God already knows what he has in store!

Pushing Forward

When I got home from camp, I knew I had less than eight weeks to train for my next half marathon. When I signed up for it in May, I thought it would be fine. But after not running for three months, I felt so stupid for signing up to run 13.1 miles in October. I told myself that I had to get up and train, even if I was tired and even if it was hard. The first three weeks back were awful. Two miles felt like 20 and I thought there was no way I'm going to survive this race. What was I thinking?! With the heat I was worried about when I would train..besides 5am..and tried to get myself to spend as much time on the treadmill as I could, but that was miserable. Surviving running for 30 minutes was a huge victory in my book. Being able to run three miles without stopping felt like a little goal but one that was difficult to reach. As the days passed I prayed and prayed asking God to give me strength and endurance to run for his glory. The last three weeks seemed more difficult than actually running my last half marathon but I told myself to keep pushing forward. You can do this. You will build up to more miles. Baby steps. Small victories. This last Saturday, I ran 6 miles. And it felt SO great!!! While it's not quite half the distance of what I will be running on October 13, I felt so much better after getting over the huge mental block that was standing in the way of me being able to increase my milage. I have learned what I mental game running is!
The last few days I've been thinking about running and how it has changed my life and how God has used it to teach me so much. Sometimes our faith and relationship with God is like the first few weeks of training for a race and you feel like there is no way I'm going to get through this or survive what I'm facing. But when we rely on God for our strength and trust him with all our hearts (even to help us survive those little runs), he will not fail us. He is constant and unchanging when we are a mess. Praise Christ!
Over the summer at camp, our staff theme was "Great call, GREATER GOD." This is something the Lord is continuing to teach me, even after the summer. Our. God. Is. GREATER. Than everything!!! God has placed a great call on my life to run for his glory. While this is a great call, I know I have a GREATER GOD who is by my side every step, every mile, every run, giving me the strength to finish. I have a God who is greater than losing sleep, squeezing everything into my schedule, and a God who is greater than the hills (physically and metaphorically!) that I face. As I continue to train for my race, I am relying on the strength of my GREATER GOD.

RO Week

This last week I got to serve as a support staff member up at camp. As counselors, we take turns supporting each other and when other people are counseling, we help with games, activities, sitting with cabins, and giving the counselors a break when they need it. When we are on rotation, we get to stay in a house with other girls on support staff and it is so much fun! We get up pretty early and don't get to bed until late at night so we are super tired but I love being on rotation! It is awesome to serve at camp from a different side! 

Even though we are not counseling, each morning we take time to be alone and spend time in God's Word. This is something campers, support staff members, and our leadership does. I love it! Last week I was reading and stumbled across this verse "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" 1 Corinthians 15:58. For a week when I was working on rotation, I thought it was perfect. There was a lot of people getting sick, students getting hurt, and crazy things happening at camp. This verse reminded me to not let the enemy's attempt to hinder us keep us from doing God's work. 

Each week we have four teams that each have a cheer captain from the support staff. I was secretly hoping I wouldn't be chosen as a cheer captain. Not even five minutes after I had that thought, someone on leadership staff walked up to me and told me I was going to be a cheer captain. I was scared I wouldn't be very good at getting people excited for games and knew it meant I would get pied in the face on Tuesday. Once I got over my initial fear of dressing up and having to be crazy, I really enjoyed being a cheer captain and am so thankful that they chose me to be the cheer captain for the blue team last week! Being pied in the face wasn't that bad because the kids loved it and I got a nice shower afterwards:) It was challenging with no voice and when I felt sick, but it was an awesome experience!

Once campers head to bed, the support staff usually goes out and does something together. One night around 11:30, we went to the beach and sat on a cliff and watched the waves crash on the shore. It was beautiful. I love love loooooove the beach and enjoyed sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean late at night where all you can hear is the water and see the white waves. It was so cool to sit there and pray and worship God as I reflected on my time here so far. I am in awe of how great our God is. The beauty of the beach blows me away every time I go there.

For Fourth of July, we took the students to the top of the hill that overlooked the valley and watched fireworks! I. LOVE. FIREWORKS. It was a fun night with the staff and campers! As we were getting ready to go to bed, I got a phone call that I needed to go to the hospital with a camper in an ambulance that had a severe asthma attack. As the 12 year old was lifted into the ambulance, I was so scared knowing that I needed to be strong for her when she had never been in an ambulance before and her parents were two hours away. I was able to pray for her and the doctors and the nurses as I sat there and had nothing with me but my phone. This late night in the hospital spending time with the sweetest 12 year old I have ever met ended up being the highlight of my week. It was a joy getting to spend time with her and asking her questions learning about her family and asking about her camp experience.

Last week was so much fun and I've learned that junior highers are the most hilarious people!

Loving serving,
Amanda