Pin Holes in the Curtains of Heaven

 Every time I go to Trout Lake Camp, I feel so incredibly close to God.  The speakers are enthusiastic, easy to listen to, and present the Gospel in fun and clear ways; often including analogies from their own lives.  The bands are fun, talented, and put their whole hearts into the songs.  The games they plan are fun, fun, and fun (I don't know what else to say) :).  The food they prepare is pretty much great.  I've been to only a couple other camps in my lifetime and they don't even hold a candle to TLC's food.  :)

 On Friday night, we drove in the driveway of TLC at about 8:45.  The highlight of that night was worship.  Unfortunately, the songs we sang were not the "traditional" Trout Lake Camps songs (such as Every Move I Make, Undignified, The Hippo Song, etc.), the songs we did sing were equally amazing.  My two favorite songs we sang were How He Loves Us and Inside Out.

 On Saturday, after a terrible nights sleep (I'm not going to lie), our day consisted of food, TAG (Time Alone with God) time, chapel (which includes the speaker and band), game, food, lots of free time (which included....drum roll, please...the zip line!), food, game, chapel, and finally ending with the HUGE bonfire.  The bonfire was totally awesome because 1) it was big, 2) we could be outside and warm at the same time, and 3) it was nice to relax and get to know some of the girls better.  The zip line was crazy awesome, too!  But at chapel that night, there was a big party in heaven as a handful of pre-teens and teens accepted Christ as their personal Savior.  What a testimony!

 Sunday, I didn't want to wake up (as opposed to Saturday am, when I was lying there awake waiting for the leader's alarm to go off so I could get off my squeaky bed), but we ate, did TAG time, went to chapel, ate, and left.

 Lately, I've been hearing a lot about how vast the universe is.  I mean, I've heard about it in Sunday school, I read about it in Crazy Love by Francis Chan, now I heard about it at TLC, and there's one other place that I can't remember right now.  Information such as this: the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across; at the speed of light, you could travel around the earth 7-3/4 times in ONE second; that no one really knows how many galaxies there are in the universe, but there have been estimates that there are more galaxies than there are grains of sand.  Now if you think of how vast Milky Way is, and know that the Milky Way is in no way the largest galaxy out there, just think of how big and wide and of incomprehensible size the universe that GOD created is!  You think of that, and tell me how small we humans are.  We may be small, but we are in no way invisible to our God; we are in no way unloved by our God; we are in no way and never will be forgotten by our God, because our God loves each of us SO much!
 The pastor/speaker told a story of a man who realized that the sky was this big, thick, black curtain covering heaven, but the stars were little pin-pricked holes in the curtain and they were revealing only a little (yet a lot at the same time) of God's glory.  So if you were to remove that curtain, only then would you see the fullness of God's glory.
 There is no way to actually comprehend just how much God loves each of us.  No matter how many times we fail, His mercy remains.
 That reminds me of a song we sang this weekend.  Inside Out is what it's called and it is written by Hillsong.  Below are the lyrics to this amazing worship song.

A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

My heart and my soul, I give You control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise, become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out

My Soul cries out to You
My Soul cries out to You

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out

 My favorite line in this song is where it says, "The art of losing myself in bringing You praise".  Losing myself in bringing God praise and glory is an art?  If so...have I mastered that art?  Have you?

 I'd like to share another song with you.  It's called How He Loves Us and it's by David Crowder Band.

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us oh
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

That He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

 With my arms raised, and tears almost breaking through, I sang this song.  God is a jealous god and He is jealous for me.  How am I able to comprehend that?  The majority of the song is made of five, very simple words: "Oh how He loves us!"  His love is like a hurricane.  Can you imagine: someone loving us SO much we're about to break in the wake of His love?  Imagine it...not only imagine it...believe it -- because it's 100% true!  We are drowning in His grace...what do you say to that?  Then the song says, "I don't have time to maintain these regrets/When I think about the way/That He loves us".  He loves us so much that He's put our past behind Him!  Why can't we?

 It reminds me of this quote by an unknown speaker, "You don't need to worry about your future, if God is in your present, and your past is behind you."

 So, you can't say I didn't warn you about the long post, because I did. :)

 On a side note, I wanted to quick tell you about our last LIVE for Christ meeting.  We had 10 girls present, we did skits and talked about Gaining a Clear Conscience.  I'm planning a Harvest Party for November, so we're all looking forward to that!  Going to be lots of fun!  God totally has His hands on this group!

 This week I'm thankful for:
81. another great discipleship group meeting
82. learning about budgeting
83. Trout Lake Camps
84. pastors who are willing to speak at youth retreats
85. zip lines
86. trying to understand just how much God loves us
87. new, warm, red sweatshirts
88. catching up in school
89. journals
90. Microsoft Word :)

 Congratulations if you read this whole thing! :)

 In Christ,
      Sierra