Rise up

Good afternoon. I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday morning! I know I am :) I got home from camp Saturday afternoon. I was super worn out so I took a big nap once I got home and it felt so good! Camp was so much fun and it was a much needed getaway. I got to see some of my old counselors and my old tee-pee mates from last year. It was so neat to see all of the people who kept up with me all throughout the year and encouraged me every step of the way. My camp friends hold a very special place in my heart and I am so thankful that I was able to go and see all of these lovely young ladies. It was very hot at camp. The temperature was in the 100's!  It was pretty brutal and it was very hard on my body. The heat wore me down so I was not able to participate in the activities. But looking on the bright side I got to spend a lot of time in the nurse station and make more friends. The nurses were like my second moms because they were so wonderful and caring and knew exactly how to take care of me. The tee-pees are not air conditioned but the nurses station is... just another reason to love the nurses office even more! My dear friend Brie who was in the tee-pee with me last year, (I could write a whole blog post about her because she is such a wonderful woman of God!) her mom was one of the nurses! It was so much fun and Ms. Penny (Brie's mom) is just as wonderful as Brie. Now I know where Brie gets it from! Ms. Penny is so great and she would take care of me and let me take a nap in her bed when I was tired and let me come in and hang out whenever the heat was too much on my little body. I am so thankful to have had Ms. Penny as my nurse because she let me come in and rest whenever that made the week a whole lot more enjoyable. I got pretty worn down at camp (I'm still recovering haha) but I grew so much spiritually! I needed this week so badly. I kept telling everyone that this week at camp was a positive distraction. It gave me a week to feel how I used to and feel like a normal 15 year old girl again instead of the St. Jude kid. At camp you are surrounded with encouraging Christians and their passion for Jesus is so contagious. I came to camp with a very strong walk with the LORD but I left camp with that walk amplified! All throughout the week there were wonderful talks and they were based on the phrase "Rise up".
R- renew
I- image
S- stand
E- encourage
U- unashamed
P- passion
These talks were so powerful and I learned how to renew myself, how to look at myself differently because I am God's creation, how to stand up for my faith, how to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ, how to be unashamed of my faith and wanting to share it with everyone I meet, and finally how to have a passion for Jesus that makes everyone around me want to follow him as well. It feels weird back to be in the real world and it is a lot harder because I don't have people around me constantly encouraging me. I am having major camp withdrawls! At camp I was blessed with the opportunity to share my testimony with the whole senior camp. I shared it on Thursday night at Crosstalk which is a very serious night. We went station to station hearing stories from doubting Thomas, scribes who copied the Bible, the Roman soldier who crucified Jesus, and many more people. That was very powerful and really put the crucifixion into perspective for me. Crosstalk always teaches me something different every year and this year it reminded me that Jesus did not die just a little death for me. In fact he died the worst death possible so that I could spend eternal life in heaven with my Father. After we went through the stations everyone went down to the lake shore and then I began sharing my story. It was very dark outside and while I was sharing my testimony there was heat lightening behind me and after I was done sharing it started pouring down rain and lightening. Sharing my story with the whole camp was such a blessing because ever since I was diagnosed I have been praying for the LORD to bless me with an opportunity to share how faithful he has been to me this whole year. It was very cool to share with the camp and it made it so much cooler to have lightening behind me. It was like the LORD was reminding me of his presence and letting me know that he would supply me with the right words to say. The storm got very bad so everyone had to go up to their tee-pee's but thankfully I was done. Crosstalk is a very important night like I said because this is when most non-believers become Christians. I am very honored and blessed to be asked to talk on this special night. The next morning I had a lot of people come up and tell me how my story has touched them. People came up to me and told me what they had been struggling with that year and they said that they needed to be reminded to put things in perspective. There was one special boy who was about 16 or 17 and he told me that after hearing my story he accepted Jesus Christ as his LORD and savior. Wow!! I have no words to express how I felt after he told me this! The LORD is not selfish and he sometimes puts trials in our lives so that he can be glorified. Having cancer some people think is the worst thing that can happen to you but actually it was one of the best things that happened to me. I had to depend on the LORD for strength and I had to trust him because I had no idea what was going to happen to me but I knew who held my future. When that boy came up to me and said that because I shared my story his life is now changed forever I realized that me getting sick was not in vain and the LORD blessed me with that boy to remind me that he has more opportunities for me in store. This is just the beginning. While I was at camp one of my friends from St. Jude passed away. Her name was Sheyla and she was from Puerto Rico. She was such a sweet and beautiful young girl and everyone called her princess Sheyla. She holds a special place in my heart and will be missed. Please keep her family in your prayers during this difficult time. Hope everyone has a blessed day and don't forget to Rise up!