So today is the first day of Kanakuk K2, Term 1 and I am not there. Needless to say I woke up at 5:30AM, after going to sleep around 3AM. Wonder why I can't sleep? My mom thinks I am depressed, she even offered to let me drive up to Lampe, Missouri to see everyone. I might take her up on that later in the term. If I didn't know exactly what it means and feels like to be depressed, I might have thought the same thing about today. I have been up for a while now spending time with Jesus, knowing that He will be the only thing to satisfy my longing heart. However, as it is I am very very sad that I am not waking up to a cabin full of bright eyed 15 year old kampers. Preferably I would like it to be Monica and Natalie Rex, Kate Mosle, and Lauren Haley; Darby Unruh, Sarah Silverii, Madison Sharpe, Alexis Shields, Therese Diedrich, and Diane Sartor. With Hattie Wheeler in tri-athlete. But any kampers would be better than no kampers, which is what I have in reality. This time last summer I was living in Cabin 15, which would prove to be the best term of my life with a studly co-counselor named Kelli, and Savannah, my new friend, as my kitchie. This time last year I was playing 'get to know you' games with 10 girls (the Rex twins came late) and singing Good Morning songs at breakfast. This time last year I was playing the scraper game, and arranging WWF tournaments at night with my girls. This time last year I was eating dreamsicles every night. This time last year I was making videos of toe people with Mon. This time last year I was starting a prayer journal (blindly) for what would later become my best friend. And this time last year I was a totally different person than I am right now, and peace and joy comes with actively seeing the progressive sanctification that has happened in my life over one year.
Aside from missing the heck out of being a counselor, I know that I am about to embark on a new adventure that will be different than any of my past ones. I mentioned moving to Denver in my last blog, and I am in the same boat today. Excited and nervous. I think the thing that intrigues me most is that I get to go there and nobody will know me. I will have zero expectations to live up to, except for the ones set in place by YWAM, but I need not worry about that. I like that idea. I like that I can go there and be whoever I want to be. Not that I plan on changing myself at all, just that nobody knows anything about me there. Nobody knows what I am good at and nobody knows my struggles. They will. Lord knows I will disappoint myself and others while I am there because I am broken and sinful, but as it stands I have a clean slate. I just marvel at the idea. I could show up and pretend that I love ballet and nobody would call me out on it. At least not until I opened my mouth and proved that I know nothing about ballet and actually rather despise it. But you get my point. Here I am Ally Rice...known by everyone to be (fill in the blank); but there I am Ally Rice...new roommate and girl I have never seen before. That's exciting to me.
I am really banking on finding some legit friends that are a lot like me. I am hoping that there is tons of granola outdoorsy athletes in attendance. I wonder who my roommates will be...to my knowledge there will be 5-7 of them. I wonder how I will like mission training. I wonder how God will use this experience to grow me more into the image of His son. I wonder where he will lead me on my outreach mission trip in September. I wonder who my friends will be. I wonder how he will reveal Himself to me through nature. I wonder what accountability will look like for me. I wonder how long distance friendships will look with the people who I have always had by my side. I wonder how I will be different. I wonder how I will be the same. I wonder what God is going to do to radically transform my heart. I wonder a lot of things. The not knowing is exciting and scary at the same time.
I am really praying, pleading, begging right now that God would prepare my heart for what I am about to encounter, whatever it may be. In the past I have not done too well with change. Today I am more mature in Christ, but I still need His power and mercy to smoothly adapt to a totally different environment full of wonder and surprise and mystery.
Please pray with me that God would use the next month (24 days) to physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually prepare my heart for what He has in store for me. Please pray with me that he would use that time to help me practice obedience to Him. Pray with me that he would put to death all the sin in me and that he would quiet the voice of Satan who is so eager to destroy all that God is doing in me. Pray that my thoughts would be captive to Christ, and that I would set my eyes on the goal and walk in confidence knowing that my God is completely in control. Pray with me that he would secure my mind against collapse under the battering of the enemy. Pray with me that I would not only feel God's presence in my past and in my future, but that he would consume my present, being sure that the knowledge of God will be given as a fact of consciousness altogether apart from the conclusions of logic. And then pray with me that my 6 months at YWAM would be the most radical transformation my heart has ever seen or known. Pray that artificiality and pretense would have no place in my life there. Pray that my interests would shift from things external to things internal, from things on earth to things in heaven, and that I would be completely consumed by Christ only. Pray for clarity as God reveals his plan for my life. Pray that he would remove all selfish motives and invade my life, driving out all traces of fleshly desires and replacing them with new Christ-like motives. I pray that my 'self' be removed, with the cross being its only effective destroyer. Pray that I would be overwhelmed at the realization that only God matters, and that this truth would work itself out into my mental life and condition all my judgments and values. Then I might find myself free from slavery to man's opinion and learn to love above all else the assurance that I am well pleasing to my Father in heaven. Finally, pray that this new life seizes my entire nature and sets about its benign conquest, a conquest which is not complete until the invading new self has taken full possession and a new creation emerges. Pray above all that God is glorified through my living. Pray that He is made famous.
Thanks in advance, and prayer warriors--take your stance. The battle is now.
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