Forget The Former Things

This transition from full-time ministry to full-time student was hardly a transition.  It was more like a rude awakening, cold water thrown in my face.

When they say that coming down from the mountain at camp is coming down from a sort of high, they aren't kidding.  It becomes your life, up there.  Everything you have, everything you do is all in one place, and your focus and mission is always clear.  Never is there doubt of what you are doing, or when you should be doing it.  Everything is on a set schedule; every meal is set before you, every activity clearly presented.  There is no technology, no other worlds pulling you to and fro.  You are just there.  In the midst of a mountain valley, quiet and at rest in the midst of the organized chaos.

You have no choice but to be in the moment.  There is no escape, no time to talk to people in other worlds.  You are just there.  My soul found the rest and quiet it had never known before.  It was so peaceful there.  God inhabits that place in ways I never thought possible.  There, in the valley surrounded by charred trees and underbrush, God is.  Peace that passes understanding dwells in that place.  There were times when I could swear that I heard the very voice of God whispering through the trees and rushing towards the vast expanse of sky, then turning, and rushing down into my soul.

My heart was healed.  Healed from the aches and pains of the previous semester.  Healed of insecurity, worry and fear.  Healed of the past.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." ~Isaiah 43:18-19.

And now I find myself immersed in my school and work once again.  How do I remember all that God did this past summer as I bury myself in my studies?  How is His presence revealed to me here, in the chaos and the noise of school?

I don't know.  But I hope He shows me.