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Ruth 1 – Naomi’s Afflictions

Naomi’s heart, “I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty”
Ruth 1:21

These words resonate and resound within my own heart as I sat outside on a Thursday morning, reading Ruth chapter 1.

I knew I wanted to do a study on Ruth simply because it’s a book that I love, but I didn’t realize how much I needed it during this season of my life where hope seems like a distant thought and my cup seems to be empty like the times I sip my black, folger coffee a little too fast and I quickly realize that the sweet times can only go so far and that, in life, there is also a bitter taste of disappointment at the bottom of our cup, sometimes we call them the grinds. They make your nose cringe, and your mouth fill up with the bitterness of the acidic taste, and how tenderly does this resonate with the story of Naomi in Ruth chapter 1 and maybe even, myself.

I think Naomi and I would have gotten along just fine. I’m great at throwing pity-parties for myself when life doesn’t go the way I had once planned or imagined, and I often blame God for it, too.

I’m so perfectly flawed when it comes to this area of my life and I wish I could say I wasn’t, but the humanity of my heart shows it so evidently. It’s a secret place in my heart that I have to continually revisit with the humility of grace knowing that I cannot always be everything I wish I could be.

Disappointments come and I often welcome them into the doorway of my heart as if they were an old friend, creating a place for them to stay for a little while until they leave a mark of bitterness stained so vividly on my heart.

We can see in Ruth 1:20, “And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me”

I just see myself, sitting next to Naomi and talking about all the ways our lives could be better.

We do that, don’t we?

Now Naomi, she had it tough. She had lost her husband; she was widowed. And she had to flee from her country leaving one of her daughters behind while bringing the other one with her in fear.

I don’t know what your life looks like right now and I certainly could not understand the kind of disappointments you may be dealing with. When they’re personal, the pain is felt so much deeper and it is hard to make sense of the complexity of it all, so I won’t pretend too. But I do want to say there is more to your story. Disappointment is never the last word. It is just a passing comment that will soon see it’s glory in the end. God wasn’t done writing Naomi’s story at the end of chapter 1. And can I say this? He’s not done writing yours, either.

I know it’s hard to understand when things don’t go the way we once thought they would or when a sudden unexpected turn of events shakes up our comfortable lives simply to throw us in a frenzy, panic of “What am I going to do now?”

I’m sure Naomi was not expecting to be left widowed or to flee from her country, but the only way to get across those valleys are to walk right through the middle. And only until we have enough faith to do that, will we see His victory on the other side.

I know during these times in our lives hope may seem so far away. But my heart, if nothing else, is that you will be able to take hope in this: HE IS STILL WRITING YOUR STORY. And it’s only the beginning.

Love and Blessings,

Moriah grace

Love people; all people.

I hate to give into the pressure of voicing my opinion on social media simply because that has been everyones first reaction as if it will suddenly deviate racism and the sin that is going on in our country.

However, I will speak up against sin and hatred that is being cast around so lightly as we hide behind our screens in attempt to seem courageous.

Growing up on the mission field, I never had the same skin tone as those around me and in reality, it made no difference to my care-free self. But I do remember as a child, my siblings and I were called “monsters” due to not having the same skin tone as the kids we were attempting to befriend.

I remember having to evacuate a country because our skin color was different from those protesting at that time. And I’m white.

This is all I know about racism and I refuse to belittle anyone else’s experiences, because I know there are far worse extents of racism going on in this world today. But I do want to say racisms is not white vs. black.It’s humans against humans.

It’s sinful. It’s wrong. It’s disheartening.

Because God made each of us unique in His image our sinful nature uses that difference to belittle & destroy those around us in a sorry attempt to elevate ourselves.

God never intended it to be like that.

It is the devils tool to bring about division where there was only meant to be unity & harmony, but that is the way it has always been since sin entered this world.

I do not believe God ever meant for us to find peace amidst such earthly things, but He did mean for us to find peace in our hearts. And not until we share that same peace we have experienced from God alone in our lives, will there be the opportunity to share peace with those around us. And not until we have His peace & love in our hearts will there be peace & love in this world.

I know many of us are outraged and angry and upset and infuriated by the evil that is taking place in this world, but may we not lose the spirit of peace that Christ gave His life to give us while we so easily give in to the enemies plan.

God exemplified grace on the cross; may we exemplify it in this world.

God came to give peace; may we communicate that peace with those around us.

God came to love; may we love as He does.

God came to give hope; so let’s have hope.

May we voice our empathy before we are so quick to voice our opinion as to where we stand in efforts to prove who we are rather than to really make a difference.

Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.
Bill bullard

May we be slow to speak & quick to love.

And before we throw around accusations and judgement upon those who have stayed silent; let’s do a heart check.

Because someone has not spoken up or given in to what the media wants everyone to say, does not mean they do not care. It does not mean they have not taken it as their personal responsibility to pray & fast & weep over what is taking place in our country not simply with racisms, but with every sin that is being cast around.

The people who are causing division among themselves are just as wrong as the racism and looting and rioting that is going on.

The devil will use any means to create disharmony and hate, and if we are foolish enough to give into such matters then there really isn’t much hope for our country.

May we use our voices to not merely voice our opinions along with a bible verse to make it somewhat relevant, but to fall on our knees in humble assurance that God is the only one who will change hearts.

Let us love people well; all people. Because that is what God has called us to do.

I am using my voice to speak out of love. I do not claim to have all the answers nor do I claim to be right– I only claim to share what God has placed on my heart over this topic.

With love,

Moriah Grace

It Has To Be Real, Just Like The Empty Tomb

I set out on a brisk morning run with my feet pounding hard against the cement firmly beneath me, I was determined to get a few miles in and to maybe get some praying done, too. That’s what I usually spend my running time doing, anyway. But this morning was different.

I didn’t really know how to start and after a few minutes I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. I muttered a few words and reluctantly ended, mostly out of pent up frustration saying, “God, I’m really bad at this whole Christian thing.” hoping to just leave it at that and go on with my day, like the assurance of admitting that would make up for my lack of spirituality.

As if my level of Christianity was merely dependent upon how many minutes I spent praying or how many chapters of my Bible I had read that day.

For someone who has grown up in a Christian circle, a ministry home, and who was saved at a young age I still really get this whole thing messed up sometimes.

I don’t know. It could be because I try wrapping my mind around something I’ll never really be able to fully grasp or comprehend, and it in turn brings my faith to a halting stop- As if my relationship with God is suppose to be a tangible, concrete faith laid out in front of me rather than a day to day unseen, yet hope-filled one.

I mess up a lot when it comes to this, but God has been teaching me something about wholehearted, consistent faith that comes even when our lives are shaken up a little bit.

Inquiring friends and family and dear readers have asked questions through email, subtle texts and letters about if I was going to write another blog post, but in reality, despite the facade that’s so easy to put on and off through a screen, I really haven’t felt like bringing all my imperfection to a place where it could be read by Christians, who are not much different than myself.

Until the reality of this thought kind of broke my prideful spirit: “Why do we always mask Christianity to be something so different than it really is?”

God didn’t send His son to go through the nail-piercing pain, appalling beatings and repulsive suffering with the expectation that every one of us were going to accept His freely given sacrifice of love, and then simply read our Bibles and pray every day without the struggle of humanity and sin preventing us from doing what we know is right.

We play Christianity so well, and it’s almost scary. We share our Bible verses and prayer request and we go to church, but how many of us can say that the reality of what He did for us on the cross is the underlying basis that moves us to our knees and to live out what we know to be true: He did not suffer and die and rise again three days later with the expectation that we would be the perfect Christians that we paint ourselves to be.

If anything, it brings me to a place of humility where my pride often prevents me from visiting. Except on the rare occasion when my faith becomes so real to me that I recognize how little it has to do with me and how much it has to do with the One who gave His life for me.

I wish we could grasp the truth behind Christianity and the Cross and the empty Tomb because I know it would not only change our lives, but the lives of those around us, as well.

Tomorrow is Easter, and the majority of us won’t be gathered in a physical building or congregated around hundreds of other likeminded believers. But I pray this year more than anything that our hearts would be so overtaken by the sacrifice of love and grace He has bestowed on us, rather than our own talents, abilities, and outfits that we often make it all about each year. I pray we would sing hallelujah over the empty Tomb and not merely for the people around us or because it’s what we do each year.

No, He didn’t go to the cross with the expectation that we would be everything we paint ourselves to be, but He went to the Cross to offer the gift of redeeming redemption- taking the place of what He knew would once be back slidden Christians, the mark of sin and the mask of imperfection we so vividly display.

Christianity has a lot to do with coming to the point in our passionless, mediocre lives where we recognize we are nothing and He is everything. It seems like a simple concept, but we are so self-focused that it produces an apathetic spirit to the point that we fail to live out our Christian lives the way that we should.

It’s a humble place to be, but it’s also so beautiful to know He would go that far when we deserve nothing more than the reality of where sin would have taken us.

I’m thankful for this truth, despite everything I am or lack thereof.

Instead of my heart reflecting my own accomplishments or failures when it comes to a certain degree of spirituality- I pray it reflects Jesus. At the root of it all, it comes down to His nails being pierced to the Cross and the empty Tomb. It is only because of what He’s done in my own life, and nothing that I have ever attempted to try to be, that has made my sin-stained life a grace-filled life.

God often brings me to the sober reality that He would have done it either way, despite what I am or what I have done, and I’m thankful beyond degree for that.

I really feel like Mary and the others when they went to the sepulcher and found it empty. I feel like running back to the homes of those I love to proclaim, “the tomb is empty!” while still feeling a little shell shocked over the reality of it all. I pray we would be like those three on that day so many years ago. That we wouldn’t get over the reality of the Cross or the empty Tomb. That it would be fresh on our hearts just like the day it was discovered, and mostly that we would never get over celebrating who Jesus is and what He has done.

It is a miracle story that I hope takes place as a miracle in our own lives along with those that surround us. If we could only learn to share it as it is, rather than being the shallow Christians we have grown so accustomed to being.

Let it be a reality in your own heart and watch it come to fruition in the lives of those around you. It has to be real, just like the empty Tomb.

Love and blessings,

Moriah grace

He Gives & He Takes Away

He gives & He takes away.
It has a lot to do with losing an old friend or buying a new house,
with saying a hard goodbye while simultaneously stepping into the unknown.
with giving something up in order for something greater to come along.
It looks a lot like losing, but in the end we gain so much more.
Sometimes it comes in the form of tears and other times it’s a simple smile.
We think we know best, yet our best is nothing but a worn down idea of what we think we want or need.
We think we can call the shots and have everything just the way we want, but in the end it’s only misfortune and heartache that takes us back to the feet of Jesus, once again.
He gives & He takes away.
And who are we to decided whether our mediocre lives deserve to be any better or worse?
It’s humility wrapped up in its finest form when God decides to take everything we’ve grown to love away.
It’s the sense of gratitude at the peak of the mountain top when He gives more than what we once wanted or deserve.
Who are we to say otherwise?
To simply nod our heads in agreement would suffice. When looking at it from a heavenly perspective it becomes so much more clear that ultimately He’s the one in control despite what we’ve always known. It’s been something we should have surrendered to from the beginning of all our hopes & dreams, and maybe it would’ve led to facing less bitter disappointments in the end- sweet, submissive surrender has always had a way of doing just that.

Love and blessings,

Moriah grace

In your unknowns; know that HE is still God.

I can easily write about past events or lessons I’ve already had to learn, but to write about where I’m at right now, what I’m learning, and the areas I’m struggling in is humbling and hard.

Everything you’re going through seems so much deeper when you’re writing about it, and then the thought of people knowing what season of life you’re in is incredibly vulnerable and intimidating, but God’s been burdening my heart about sharing “my now.”

A big percentage of my readers are near my age and going through the same season of life as me, and I recently thought to myself, “It’s so selfish of me to not share what God’s been burdening my heart about when it could be a blessing or encouragement to someone else.”

I’ve been reading my Bible a lot lately, and that’s not something I say to boast about. I say that because I’m in a difficult season of life and I don’t really know what else to do, so I’m clinging ever so tightly to God and His Word to guide me through it.

Sometimes I shy away from talking about reading my Bible or praying because of fear of what people will think, but in reality it’s so humbling. It’s like saying, “I can’t do this on my own.” and recognizing how much you desperately need God.

I registered for college a week ago, and it was the last thing I wanted to do.

I was so, so afraid. It was my second semester and I shouldn’t have had anything to fear, but for some reason I allowed the enemy to use anxiety to almost take me away from the very place God wanted me.

I remember hearing someone say, “The only person that can get you out of the will of God is you.” In the end the decision is yours- it’s not your parents, friends, or even your fear.

I was close to packing my bags and heading back home that day; that’s what I wanted or really, what my anxiety wanted. God is so gracious though.

I’ve been waking up early and I’ve been praying for peace, because some days it’s been really hard to find it in the midst of all my anxious thoughts. There’s always been something about the stillness of when the sun is rising, and light is pouring through the morning sky that has offered a quiet kind of peace, as if God was saying, “You don’t have to do today on your own.”

I asked God where He wants me to be. I thought college didn’t really seem worthwhile and my anxious thoughts interrupted any kind of peace I could have had about it, but God’s been teaching me a lot over the past week alone.

I’m learning that it’s not bad to question God if you’re genuinely searching for an answer.

I’ve been wanting peace of mind. I didn’t want to have to fight the thought of staying or leaving anymore; I was tired of doing that.

Honestly, not much of anything was making sense. I didn’t really understand why God had me in college and I still don’t really know what He is doing, but for some reason I’m learning to be okay with it. I’m learning that when things don’t make sense, He still does. That when I don’t understand, He does. That when I’m afraid, He is near. And that resting in His presence is the only thing that will get me through those things that I don’t really always understand, because I know that His ways are higher than my own. Isaiah 55:8-9.

I’m learning that sometimes it’s not meant for me to know everything, but simply to be still and know that HE is God. Psalms 46:10.

I don’t understand, but I don’t have too, either.

I’m learning to trust in the face of the unknown.

I’m learning to have faith in the midst of my fears.

and mostly, I’m learning things that I wouldn’t ever be learning if God had never placed me in a position of needing to be dependent upon Him.

I get so caught up in doing my own thing and making my own decisions that sometimes God has to place me in a position of depending on Him rather than myself.

My heart for writing all of this is for the one’s out there who may be in a season of doubt, confusion, or fear of the unknowns they may be facing. My heart is that you would feel a little less alone in your struggles, that you would learn to grow in these seasons of life, and that prayer would be your life-line for peace in the midst of your doubts.

This season hasn’t been everything I thought it would be, but nonetheless I’m so thankful for it and for the growth that it has already offered.

I’m thankful that God is good, faithful, and so kind when I’m most undeserving.

For the one’s in a similar season as my own- keep being faithful and you’ll see God is faithful.

Love and Blessings,

Moriah grace

A Little More Like Jesus

I’ve been reflecting on everything this year has held from each transition to every opportunity God has allowed me to have.

From working all winter, graduating in the spring, working at camps throughout the summer, and completing my first semester of college in the fall. This year has held so many doubts and fears, yet simultaneously it has brought about so much faith.

Strangers have become friends, some of my greatest fears have faded into grace, prayer has become my life-line, and experience has been my greatest thrill. Throughout this year God has worked and moved in ways I have never seen Him move before.

There were nights spent on my knees because I had no idea what my tomorrow would hold and there were moments I felt I had no voice to pray at all, but it was in the midst of those moments I had learned to become more dependent upon God rather than my circumstances.

I can’t say I’ve accomplished anything, because I really haven’t, but I can say God has done SO much and it’s been the most rewarding thing to be a small part of it all.

I’ve learned humility in the most painful, yet beautiful of ways.

Mostly, God has taught me how to love past who I am and to the point where I had no more love left to give, and yet He still kept pouring His own love into me.

God taught me that I’m nothing but a vessel that He desires to use for His glory. A thought that leaves me in complete awe almost every day.

After everything God has shown and taught me this year, I still sit here in the quiet of my home, my fingertips typing letter after letter as God gently whispers into my heart “You still have so much more to learn.”

I was praying and thinking about everything I could only dream about for 2020. I have ambitions and plans, ideas and goals, that I can only pray will be a part of this next year. But as I sit here in the midst of my excitement that tends to put a spark in my heart God made me realize just one thing.

I can dream all the dreams, and plan all the trips, I can do all the things, and let my attention gather around all my neatly, thought-out ambitions. I can even hope to become some sort of something great, but in the end what will that matter?

If I haven’t become any more like Jesus then is it not all done in vain?

As I enter into this new year sometime soon I’m striving to rest in the promise that He knows my hearts desires.

I’m left with only one goal for this new year, that is: To be a little more like Jesus.

That’s all I really want, because by the time this next year comes around and I look back to see who I’ve become– I hope to see a reflection of Jesus in the simplest of forms.

In the smiles that I give and the love I pour out, in the words that I speak and the places I go, in my heart and mind, and in all that I am.

I just hope to be a little more like Christ.

I hope for people to see something more than just me when they look my way– I hope they see Jesus, more than anything else.

My friend, you can make all the resolutions and you can write down your every ambition, but I hope you can also become a little more like Jesus above anything and everything else.

I pray this new year that is soon to come is filled with God’s blessing and that the dreams that you dream become a part of your life, but mostly, I pray that we all become a little more like Christ.

Love and blessings,

Moriah grace

A Time to Pray

God: “I miss you. Please talk to me, I want to hear your voice again.”

It’s time people get serious about prayer and start making it a daily importance in their life not just something they have to do, but something they get to do. Talking to God is a great privilege we should never, ever take for granted.

Is your prayer life struggling? I’m gonna be completely honest, mine is.

Sometimes our spiritual life becomes so routine we just ask God for the things we want, thank Him, and continue on, our prayers become the same thing every day.

We get so caught up in the things of the world, what OTHERS think of us, what we NEED to have, and what we HAVE to do that we forget about the facts that God thinks of us, we’re beautiful in His image, what we HAVE, and what we GET to do.

Today I challenge you to start your days with an “I get to” mentality, keep a prayer journal and cross out and thank God for the prayers He answers whether you like the answer or not because He does answer every single one of our prayers, sometimes it just takes time.

Also, set a specific time to talk to God, I promise it will help your prayer life tremendously!

with love, Charity

Loneliness- A Divine Appointment With God, Himself.

As someone who has grown up moving from place to place, who has attempted to learn the art of saying goodbye over and over again, who has met person after person and who has grown to greatly appreciate the little consistency life has offered me I’m beginning to realize the blessings of it all even when there may have been moments of time I thought of it as anything but a blessing.

Many of you know that I lived in Italy for two years, yet don’t know that friendship and community and unity seemed scarce while loneliness seemed ever so real throughout those two years. Looking back, I now see it as a season of growth, as a divine appointment with God, alone. Don’t get me wrong, it was difficult and heart aching. I still have tear stained journal pages tucked away to look back on this season I once only wanted to escape, but now when I look back, I see a specific friendship that had formed over two years of sleepless nights and longing for something- anything really- to connect with. Looking back, I see how my relationship with God grew beyond anything I ever thought it could. There was so many nights I would long for a friend to tell all my problems too, to laugh with and to pour my hearts deepest desires into and somehow over the two years there despite how many times I claimed I wanted some one who could “really” be right there by my side, I found the sweetest friendship in Jesus I could ever ask for.

I found something so much more valuable than what I had been searching for.

You see, I knew about Jesus my whole life, I asked Him into my heart at the age of seven but I never really pursued a friendship with Him until I was walking through that desert valley. I felt like I had nothing and all I had ever known was lost- that’s when I really found Him, because it’s when I realized He was all I ever needed & would ever need.

I realized that sometimes He takes away in order for us to find the value in things that really matter.

Since then, I’ve moved back to America, I’ve now lived here for a year and Jesus has brought some of the most kind-hearted people into my life. He’s blessed me with friends who I could claim as adopted brothers, sisters, grandparents, and in reality, friendships of all ages that I could claim as my own family. Some days, I still wonder why He brought me through two years of heartache and longing for the kind of friendships I have now, but then I think maybe it’s because He wanted me to seek Him before I sought out anything or anyone else.

I can’t help but feel immensely grateful for the people God has brought into my life in which I would have never felt if I hadn’t of spent two years in what often felt like solitude. I still can’t really understand it all, but for some reason I’m okay with that because I know His ways and thoughts are so much higher than my own. Although, I have and still often struggle when it comes to friendships, I would put on a friendly persona but then there was this sturdy wall I happened to build up between the bridge of my outer appearance to my inner heart.

I had become so independent (or so I felt) that I often thought to myself that I didn’t need anyone else. For the longest time the devil had me believing there was no value in friendships if they were only going to be stripped from me at some point in time and with the amount of goodbyes I had whispered throughout my life, I couldn’t help but believe it was true. I saw no point in building a friendship that would shortly be knocked down with another goodbye, another hopeless see you later. However, I didn’t realize the blessings I was missing out on.

I almost tend to shy away from writing about this, it still often feels so real- the goodbyes and then the loneliness that follows like a dark shadow, but my heart aches for those who are experiencing loneliness, those who have been hurt by a friend and now see no value in it, those who are in a valley, and then those who have recently whispered a “see you later” not knowing when that later would really be.

I’ve experienced it, maybe not completely in the same way you have/are and maybe I still don’t understand everything there is to know about friendships, but I can say that however difficult and heart-aching that it may all sometimes be that it’s also so, so beautiful.

God didn’t create us to do life alone, but rather to be in community and fellowship with each other and to go a little farther than that, He created us to be in fellowship with HIM. So before we reach out to those around us, let’s build the foundation for every friendship we may create by first being in fellowship with our Creator- God.

I want to encourage you with this: Spend your mornings with Jesus, build on to your relationship with Him every single day and then invest in the friendships He has given you. Be a giver of life to those around you. Be a blessing while you can, because the reality is that some friendships are only meant for a season of life and you gotta make the most of it with the time He’s given you. Call an old friend every once in awhile- be that someone who cares. Serve Jesus together and make memories that are worth looking back on, because it’s not that friendships aren’t worth investing in, it’s that friendships are too wonderful of a thing to miss out on.

I’ve shifted my mindset on the whole thing. I now want to be the kind of friend I always longed for. I want to love those God has put in my life wholeheartedly in the timeframe He has given me. I want every opportunity and person God has placed in my life to be seen as something worthy of investing in because I believe God places people along our pathway for a reason and it’s not something we should push to the side as we travel along this wonderful journey called life.

Be a friend- be the one that creates an atmosphere of community.

It’s worth it, so worth it.

love & blessings,

Moriah grace

A Place to Meet With God

Serving for six weeks in the middle of a West Virginian forest, somewhere that’s significantly known as “a place to meet with God” grew me in areas I didn’t even realize I needed to grow in.

It’s a difficult thing to put into words, but it grows you beyond your limits and leaves you with this quiet knowing that if it wasn’t for God my inadequacy would have won out before I could even try to prove the little that I know about life.

Last Saturday, as I rode the three hr drive back to my home in Ohio, I compared the time between my staff training week to last weeks nine day program.

I don’t have much to say about myself, but I do have a whole lot to say about God.

Because in a few, seemingly short six weeks, which at times did feel like they were never-ending, God used a group of people who often felt so disqualified in ways that are hardly explainable to accomplish what He had planned for the summer of 2019.

I can’t speak for the entirety of the staff, but I think I can speak for the majority of us when I say that I’m convinced God knowingly handpicked each one of us to be a small part of His work even while considering the countless times I thought I had failed just to show me that it really wasn’t about me- or any of us really- but about serving the One who has the power to work and move and change people’s lives for eternity.

I learned that growth requires two things:

1) A step of faith.

2) A handful of humility.

Because when your placed in a position where you don’t know anything and everything seems beyond your own comprehension, you begin to humbly realize everything that you’re not and everything that God is and all that He can do in not only your life, but in the lives of those around you as well.

I learned that sometimes taking a few steps forward to see the details is just as necessary as taking a few steps back to see the bigger picture.

I learned that people are a ministry in and of themselves and that watching God touch the lives of even the most difficult campers was one of the most rewarding parts of serving at The Wilderness.

I got to experience a little bit about how to continue to love even when it was the farthest thing that I wanted to do at times, and it made me realize the depth of my Saviour’s love for even me.

It wasn’t building fires each night, going on adventurous overnight camping trips, canoeing down a river or zip lining over a ravine that made this summer one to remember but it was the subtle moments that led to impacting a kids life while walking down the same trail that you had already been down a million times, it was sitting down after an extremely long day and sharing what God had placed on your heart, it was singing the same camp songs over and over again simply for the purpose of praising His name, it was the realization that everything we had poured our hearts into throughout the day suddenly become so clear and right at the end of each chapel service.

The daily fighting against the enemies lies and deceptions were often so real and vivid, but now looking back over the past six weeks I can see that it was only because God was moving in ways bigger than I could see at the time.

I at times may have taken for granted the front seat view of God working in campers hearts day after day, but it’s something I slowly grew to appreciate because it’s such a privilege to have even the smallest part in it and that’s something not everyone has the opportunity to experience.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to spend six weeks of my summer serving Jesus and to see lives changed because of it.

I’m grateful for the people God brought in my life whether it was for only a week or if it was for six weeks.

I learned that if your intention is to simply be a servant, God will without fail bless you in ways that you don’t even deserve.

To be a blessing, is to be blessed.

That is one thing I know to be true.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who prayed and helped by giving in some way or another over these past six weeks because without you all I wouldn’t be writing this right now, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of serving Jesus, so thank you beyond words.

Love and Blessing,

Moriah Grace