8 Year Old Teachers.

So, I have done worse than normal blogging lately! It’s summer here...which means I am at the office from 7:30am until about 8:00pm every day. I don’t have time to renew my expired truck registration, much less blog. We just finished up our last summer camp and will be moving back into retreat season soon. A couple of weeks ago we finished up our last Kids Camp. These camps are for 3rd-6th grade students. I absolutely love having them here because they have such great joy for life...and they are ADORABLE. Running around sweaty and excited with bandanas on their heads and snow cones in their hands. Really really cute.

The office where I sit has two huge windows facing outside so I see a lot of the campers throughout the day – even though I don’t go outside much. One afternoon I saw a group of girls – probably 7 or 8 years old – running through the grass in their swimsuits and towels, laughing and eating ice cream bars they just got from the snack shack with their hair waving in the sun. I found myself wishing, for just a minute, that I could go back to that age. I can’t imagine being back there – worrying only about which flavor of ice cream to choose. Now? Now I worry all the time. How will I pay my bills this month? Why doesn’t a particular guy like me? No ice cream allowed on my low carb diet and you would never catch me running around in my towel. No way! Have you seen my thighs? Nope. No running in public.

How terrible.

I wish I could look back and choose a moment when I magically went from being a carefree little girl to a grown-up with grown-up problems. I think it was a gradual process. I stopped thinking I was pretty; stopped loving everyone just because; started caring more about what people thought about me than what God thought about me.

So the deep question is: “Am I really who God wants me to be; who I know I am? Or am I a version of myself?”

Would 5 year old Abby look up to me today? Would she be proud of who I turned out to be? Or would she laugh and tell me to stop worrying so much and just eat an ice cream bar if I want one? Would she understand me crying over the fact that some guy doesn’t like me? Or would she tell me that it doesn’t matter because Jesus loves me this I know?

I desperately want to figure out who God intended me to be, and not just who others expect me to be. I want to dream. I want to travel. I want to love people who are different than me. I want to write stories and eat chocolate and be content. No wonder Scripture tells us to have the heart of a child. I have so much “knowledge” now...so many years of experience...but I’m pretty sure 8 year old Abby was wiser in many ways than the woman I am today...