Believing Again

As I stare into the blackness surrounding, a tear trickles down my cheek. I drown out the chatter of the awaiting campers at the Friday night passion play and as I lean against the wall, everything else seems to fade away.

So this is the reason that I’m standing here now. You knew God, even when I doubted.

The backstory to this day begins at the very beginning of camp. As soon as I heard of the 3 Part Play that takes place every year at Au Sable, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Once auditions rolled around, I couldn’t wait to try out for some of the major roles, but when casting was decided, I ended up with a small role in the Passion Play on Friday night. In selfishness, I began wondering why, when God knew I loves acting more than anything else in the world, He was only allowing me to act for less than 4 minutes per week.

Last Friday night I was with my girls at the gym when I noticed one of the girls sitting away from the group, obviously distraught. I walked over to sit down by her and asked her what was wrong. At first she didn’t say much, only keeping the conversation at surface level. Slowly her walls began to break down and she began to cry. She told me about her life, things she said she had never told anyone else before. Abuse, both mental, physical, and sexual, had been a part of her childhood and the guilt she had been carrying around because of this seemed more that such a young girl could handle. Yet this was her life, a life still filled with abuse. She had spent her life feeling like she was damaged goods and having been judged by those very people who were abusing her. As she opened up, she would ask me what she should do about these situations, so many of them impossible for there to be any fast or easy solution.

Although I talked with her for an hour and a half, you could tell that she was having a hard time understanding how God could love her. Although I wished that we could talk more, I had to leave her with another staff member that were part of the cabin family (staff that have been assigned to specific cabins so that they can interact with the campers) because the evening program was going to start in no time at all.

As I ran/walked the mile or so to the Pathfinder Pavilion, I kept thinking about our conversation and praying constantly for her. I rushed to get into my costume and quickly took out the braids that where there to create messy waves in my hair. As the overhead lights turned off and the campers began to file in, I finally had a moment to take it all in.

And that’s when I realized fully that my role in the passion play completely mirrored the feeling of this young girl. You see, my character was the woman caught in adultery. The shame and guilt my camper had felt her whole life echoed what this women (perhaps Mary Magdalene) experienced when thrown at Jesus’ feet.

Think about it. It’s one thing to be caught in sin and taken outside of the city to be killed. It’s a complete different thing to be brought to the most holy place in Jerusalem to a man who has already tried to save you, yet for whatever reason you’ve turned your back on Him and returned to the darkness. You know how you will be viewed in His eyes.

A hopeless cause.

Completely broken and beyond repair.

Getting what is rightly deserved.

How else could He view you?

But instead He is silent as those hypocritical, self-righteous men weave words of charm to trap Him as they have trapped you.  He’s thinking of their sins, not yours. Without spoken words, He silences their charges and with only the movement of His finger, He causes the stones to fall from their hands.

And then when it’s just you and Him, He picks you up from the ground and tells you that although He knows of your sins, He sees a better life for you to live. He loves you in spite of what you’ve done and nothing you could ever do would change that fact. And He’s waiting, waiting for you to make a decision to allow Him to take charge of your life and transform the life you’ve been living into one of completeness and joy.

When my camper stood up when the pastor called for those to stand who wanted to give their lives to Jesus for the first time and then walked to the front to show she wanted to be baptized, I couldn’t hold back a single tear. Through the play she had finally come to understand God’s amazing love and in our cabins journal, she wrote that she now believed again in a God out there who loved her no matter what.

That’s what camp ministry is all about: showing campers the love of Jesus so that they can believe in Him again, either for the first time or for the hundredth time. It's about showing them a love beyond anything they've ever experienced here on earth and making it real in their lives.