garaywa wrap up.

i'll be honest: i didn't write this for my blog.
i wrote this for my application for next summer at Garaywa. :)
however, i figured it'd be a good wrap up to my summer.
here ya go.

I thought Garaywa would be simply be a camp experience, but Garaywa is a life-changing place. I thought I was done growing for a while. I was so wrong! I came into camp full of pride, thinking that I could handle it, and that everyone would love me. I was convinced that I had given everything to God, and that this summer would be all about serving. I was so sure that God would make it a summer where I was constantly happy and always full of energy. In all of these things, I was wrong. I couldn’t handle Garaywa. People didn’t always love me. I hadn’t given it all to God. I was going to be served. I wasn’t happy, nor full of energy, all the time. However, Garaywa was exactly what I needed.

Looking back, I hate seeing who I was at the beginning of the summer. My attitude was not where it needed to be. I was so full of myself and my abilities. I didn’t have the respect I should have had. I listened to all of the training, but I felt like I could just fall back on my common sense. The first week, God broke me down. He continued that theme throughout my summer. He broke me of my pride, my judgmental tendencies, my lack of compassion. He broke me of my stubbornness and fear by forcing me to share my whole life story with so many people. He required me to learn what unconditional love truly meant, not only from His heart, but from other people. It was a huge life change. I know that I have grown so much from all these things.

I look back over Garaywa and all that happened, and I do still see some areas of sin. I realize that I didn’t always “work unto the Lord and not for men.” I didn’t always take criticism well. I lost focus on what was really important sometimes. I see these areas and I think “Anna, what were you doing? Why weren’t you aimed towards the goal?” It frustrates me, but it makes me thankful anew for forgiveness and grace, both that of my Father and that of my fellow Garaywa Girls.

God broke me down at Garaywa, but He then built me back up in ways that I wasn’t expecting, with friends and mentors, with a sister, with a place that I felt safe for the first time in a long time.