Summit 2018

I kind of talked about my weekend at Summit in my last blog post, but I think my experience deserves it's own post. So I guess I'll start with the week before leaving for Summit. At small group, I had to promise myself that I would be fun on this road trip (I actually hate road trips so much, I usually try to sleep the whole way). I felt like I had an obligation to the other girls in my small group to be fun, so I was going to be fun gosh darn it. We sang early 2000s songs at the top of our lungs and stopped for food at a spaceship shaped McDonald's (it's in Roswell, NM and it's dope) and had a grand ole' time.

We finally got there and had to drive up this terrifying canyon in the dark and rain. It took us literally half an hour to get up there because we were going so slow. Every turn we took we thought we were going to drive off the side of a cliff. The funny part is that on the way home we finally realized that we were never close to falling off the side of a cliff- we weren't even on the side of the cliff (yes, we were thoroughly embarrassed).

Moving on from that traumatic experience, I guess I should talk about what I actually learned. First of all, Jordan Goodie's sermons on The Kingdom of God were so dope, and the couple of different breakout sessions I went to were so fulfilling. Something that stood out to me from Goodie's sermons was when he talked about why bad things happen if God is so good. I had always had that question, and I had been learning a lot about that topic. I think the way he put it really helped me find the answer.

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He explained that we have God's kingdom, and we also have many other kingdoms that we ourselves make. The problem is that we want to be a part of a kingdom, but we want to sit on the throne instead of allowing God to. Let's jump ahead a bit (I'm sorry, don't crucify me) to the other night. I went to Roaring Springs to attend the youth service with some friends because one of them was preaching. During her sermon, she said that Christians start out being on the throne with Jesus on the cross, but they don't want to put themselves on the cross so He can be on the throne. People want to be saved but expect Jesus to do all the dying.

Another part from Goodie's sermons was when he talked about surrender. So I had thought that surrender was a one time thing, and I didn't realize this had been weighing on my heart. Goodie helped me realize that surrender wasn't a one time thing, and you're not a failure when you surrender something and take it back. He said it was a journey. Just like with forgiveness, you must do it 70 times 7 times. 

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So, both breakout sessions I went to were really fulfilling. However, something that really resonated with me was from the Mind in Love With God session with Taylor Cruz. He explained to us the importance of camouflage and hypocrisy. 

He defined camouflage as when something greater makes itself out to be lesser. That makes me think a lot about my thought-life. I've always been scared of sharing my thoughts with others because of the fear that they're not good enough, or that they sound stupid. That's the thing, how am I going to grow if I don't share with others? And how am I going help others grow? How dare I keep my thoughts from people who could benefit from them because I, "don't feel like it".

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If you made it to the end, then congrats. I have been trying to type this for the last two days but I've been avoiding it because I felt that it was too unstructured. So for that, I give you my deepest condolences. Anyway, thanks for reading. Man, I need a cute sign-off. Tasman, please help me if you're reading this.