The Friday of Fall Getaway was a rollercoaster day of many sorts. The beginning was rushing, chaos and a bit of panic, trying to get everything done and packing and all for Fall Getaway. Printing music, packing stuff, making sure I have homework done/have a plan for that, etc. I honestly could not think past FG because I had so much to do that it overwhelmed me. Step by step. What's the next thing to do??
That morning, I knew I had to have some bible time to calm myself down and focus on why I was working towards FG. I read about Noah and the flood. God was faithful to Noah, to get everything ready for the flood, and to keep them afloat, and to keep them alive with that many food chains in the same boat. He will be faithful to me. He gave Noah a rainbow; I felt like I was going to get one, too. I asked him to point them out. It had been raining earlier that week, but I looked out and it was sunny and gorgeous; I said, "I'll take that, sure whatever, NOW, what's next."
Fast forward through wolfing down food, packing, praying, a randomly peaceful Astronomy class (planetarium shows rock) to riding in the car with Kayla, Amber, and Whitney. I slept half the way, we stopped at Burger King (ICEE), then I stayed awake for the remainder of the journey. At one point I was just staring out the window when I saw a cross -- it was a shadow in the co-pilot's window of like the antenna and something else? I wasn't quite sure where it came from. But it was awesome! It was my rainbow. As I watched, it would be visible when the trees were in the background and the sun was glaring on the window; but if the sun went behind the trees, it disappeared. If it was against the backdrop of blue sky, it disappeared. I felt like God was telling me that if life was dandy and sunny all the time, I would lose sight of him because I would not depend on him. But if life was all shadows with no Sun, obviously he disappeared then and I would be overpowered by darkness. But if I have the Son shining in my life and yet there are trials and struggles, points of darkness, that's when I see him clearest.
Couldn't get a picture of it with my phone, and my camera was buried. :-(
Get there and immediately get to practicing songs. Practice was fine. But during the actual worship service, I actually listened to the words and found truth and some of those words resonated in my heart, especially after such a crazy week. (which also reaffirmed what God said about the darkness+light thing).
Get done, Pardi talks. I get my notes out, start writing "October 1, 2010" and I stop, and it's my second rainbow. God reminded me that my first ever middle school retreat was October 1-3, 2003. That was the weekend that I truly feel like I became a Christian -- it stopped being my family's religion and became my relationship. That weekend. Seven years ago. And everything Pardi was saying was a complete deja vu of that night. It was ridiculous. I mostly just enjoyed listening to it again, and prayed that it would impact others the way it had impacted me. But mostly I was just in awe of what God was showing me.
Bonfire. But it wasn't the fire that fascinated me at first; it was the stars. There were so many more stars there than @ college or @ home. And after the planetarium show I had had that afternoon, I was able to find the big dipper, the north star, and the little dipper. Kait helped me find Andromeda and Cassiopeia, and I showed a bunch of people where the big dipper, little dipper and Cassiopeia were. But what was also really cool was that you could see the milky way! You could see a band of lots of little stars all together just completely swept across the sky. Third rainbow.
Hung out with people at the bonfire when I got cold, took tons of pics of the fire. took a last few pictures of the sky, almost went back when I saw the logs were shaped like a cross in the dying embers. Forth rainbow.
I have a feeling God gives us rainbows every day. I was just looking for mine. And I needed every single one of them.
Saturday was fun and great and I had a good time. Got to know more people and have a good Q&A time with Pardi. We talked about Revelations, how to reconcile the OT God and the NT God, and other such things that I can't remember, how sad.
Last worship night w/ me playing was good. I felt like it was a little crazy because we didn't know quite what we were doing, but we just did it and lots of people said it was their most favorite part of the weekend, so it was good to remember that God doesn't need us to be perfect, to have our A-game on or anything. We just had to do what we had to do and he would work through it, even in the rough spots.
Erm. Yeah. And. Mostly the rest of it was good great things, but nothing compared to Friday. I mostly just enjoyed know that God is faithful, and if I seek HIM first, everything else will follow.
Wow, a week later and I still have to relearn this stuff.
Anywhos, good night!
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