Wow! Winter camp was more awesome than I thought it was going to be!  I was really impressed by both the band and the speaker, Scott.

The theme was Transform, and Scott talked about Peter.  He talked about how when Jesus and Peter first met, Peter’s name was actually Simon.  Jesus met him for the first time, and told him his name was now Peter, which means Rock.  He also talked about how Peter walked on the water with Jesus, on an unstable lake during a storm.  He told us how Peter  had a really bad day, and denied that he knew Jesus three times, but that Jesus still loved him and his last words to Peter were “Follow me.”

He told us the first step was to start following, truly following Jesus.  He told us we would inevitably fail, but that Jesus would keep loving us.  He encouraged us to place a filter on our lives!  He talked about really bad days, days that change your life, days that leave us a choice of whether to give up or to continue following.  The whole weekend was pretty powerful. 

What I got out of the weekend is this:  Be me.  I realized this weekend is that I am trying so hard to make myself better, that I am forgetting the “myself” part.  I wrote in my journal one night, “I want to be a better version of me, but I still want to be me.”

There are things in my life that I need to change, I know that well.  But there are also parts of me that God created, parts of my personality that are a part of who God made me to be.  I need to be happy with those parts. 

I had a moment this weekend where the light just clicked:  Jesus takes into consideration who I am when He sends me challenges and trials.  He doesn’t want me to give up my personality to overcome those challenges, He wants me to figure out how I can overcome them, personality and quirks and all.  It was a very freeing moment. 

So, currently, I am in the process of learning to be happy with who I am.   I want to be satisfied with the person God created, but never satisfied with my progress towards becoming more like Jesus.  This weekend, I learned the difference between the two.