I am going to post something very important to me on this blog. I normally don't put any of my true feelings on here just jokes or fun times, but i feel like god told me to put this on here. I recently went to youth camp where most of open Bible's churches youth go. For the past couple of years i have been praying to god that in some way he would show me himself being real. I had seen miracles done at camp before but this year was special. If you ask anyone in my family they will tell you that i am the social head of my family, or was. I could feel myself changing at camp. I was becoming more and more less talkative and it was becoming harder for me to meet people. In all of the years that i had been praying to god for a sign i had never felt like i had a true one. i knew that i was blessed, but didn't feel like i had a solid relationship with god. I used to always tell my friends about my religion and about how Jesus will save you from hell and to pray and such, but as you get older and people start to change, it's harder to speak your true feelings as much. I didn't become a bad person but i felt myself not praying every night, truly. Just praying before meals or a small prayer before bed. god was becoming less an less real to me by the day. I started not to share god with people as much. I wouldn't deny my being a christian but i would sometimes feel embarrassed about it. My whole family has always had a pretty solid relationship with god but i felt like i was an outsider that didn't. My main focus at camp was to meet god like i had never really met him before. I was very silent the first 2-3 days of camp and didn't really feel god's power come over me. I have talked about this to my mom several times and her reply is god is speaking to me, i just don't know how to hear him yet. Every day got more frustrating as i didn't hear him like i wanted to. it became harder and harder to watch people develop a relationship with god because i didn't understand why he wasn't talking to me. I almost broke down crying every day i didn't hear him calling my name. The first day of camp i hammered a nail into a cross as a sign that i was giving my life to god. i knew what this meant but i wasn't in a position to where i was going to keep a relationship with god. i saw that as something saying that i wouldn't sin. The second day of camp was similar to the first. I understood Mike's sermon but i didn't really feel god in my life. At this point of camp i didn't really have many people to talk to. I wasn't introducing myself to people so i wasn't meeting people. I didn't like it, but i didn't want to not be liked, or thought of as "weird." For the last 2 years i haven't had much self-esteem. I have felt ugly and like people don't like me, so this made it harder to meet people, because of the fear to be rejected. the third day of camp Mike talked about how in heaven we would become Gods and Goddesses. that everyone would be in such a beautiful body that if it were on earth people would feel obligated to worship it. He talked about how we are all princes and princesses in heaven. we wrote on a piece of paper our struggles, then on the back prince, or princess, because that is what everyone is. then we nailed that piece of paper on our nail in the cross. By this point I'd seen god in other people's lives but i hadn't felt him in mine. every day of camp that i didn't feel god i felt more and more rejected but at the same time wanted him more and more. The fourth day of camp I started talking to people a little bit more than the days before. I remembered how great it was to communicate with people again. The worship was absolutely amazing. Even after growing up with it it still stuns me how much people do to show god how much they love him. people were on the ground kneeling, screaming, singing, dancing and jumping for Jesus. The lyrics to one of the songs we sang during worship is "i will not be quiet, i will not silent, i will live out loud." I realized right then that i had been silent and quiet because of my own fear of being rejected. As mike spoke, things just kept hitting me all at once. I realized that i like being talkative and that it's something i don't want to lose. I want to be able to introduce myself to people and not be afraid. i wanted to talk to people about god and not be ashamed. I realized i still had enough confidence to do it too. Lyrics to another song that spoke to me were "You saw the very day we'd fall away from you, and how desperately we need to be redeemed." God waited for the right time to show me that he IS real. He knew how much i needed him in that moment and he showed himself to me. People who had felt like they had heard god's voice were asked to come to the front of the tent. I went. Mike talked to us about how right then we had probably had basically a plan for life and could see what we want to do. I knew right then that god said that to me. I'm supposed to not be silent, but to share my story.
i am supposed to introduce myself to people and introduce them to god. I communicate with god through people. i can't not tell people about god. I am going to live forever perfectly with god and i want to bring as many people as i can. every time I see people get to know god now, i feel joy, not jealousy, the joy in my heart is gods voice. That is how i hear him. After i realized this mike told us if we feel called to it to approach people and pray for them, now is the time. As for me, being silent all of camp and not having met many people, i was hesitant to start. But i saw it as an opportunity for my calling in life from god. I prayed for 3 people that night, i felt joy.

I know god.