Many of you know that I like to read books with my ears. I finished the first book of The Heroes of Olympus series on my way to Candlestick, and I started the second book yesterday on my way to Boone. I went to see Horn in the West.
On my way back to camp last night, though I truly enjoy listening to books, I decided to listen to music instead. Windows rolled down, heat blasting to balance out the crisp 56 degree temperature, left arm periodically waving in the wind, I drove the curvy mountain roads singing as loudly as I could without damaging my voice.
It was awesome.
As I drove, I found myself flashing back to another night of music listening seventeen years ago. I wasn’t in the mountains. I wasn’t even driving. In fact, I was laying in my little bed in my little room, trying to figure out where God was calling me to serve that next summer.
The previous summer, I had worked at Mundo Vista for the first time. I had had a good summer and made some good friends, and I’d even successfully made it through the summer wearing closed-toes shoes! But camp was comfortable to me. I was good at it—gifted, even. And “Doesn’t God call us to step out of our comfort zones? Doesn’t God call us to take risks so that we will rely fully on him?”
That summer, there was a position open for a person to minister to migrant workers in Eastern NC. Speaking Spanish (which I do not do) was highly recommended but not required, and somehow I had gotten it into my head that this was the job I should attempt—because it was way out of my comfort zone and would mean total reliance on God.
Sometime over Christmas break, as I was discussing summer mission options with my parents and talking through my leap of faith migrant ministry option, my dad told me that he believes that God desires us to minister out of our giftedness—that trusting in God and relying on God doesn’t mean being totally unprepared or fighting an upstream battle. He believed that I was gifted for camp ministry and that I should go back if I had the desire. Yet I was a stubborn college sophomore and couldn’t get past the idea of getting out of my comfort zone, so I didn’t humbly listen to my dad.
As I was lying in bed that night, though, listening to a new group that my friend Allie had introduced to me the summer before, God swooped down and covered my body with a sense of knowing that I had never before experienced. Though I can’t remember the exact song that was playing, I know that it came from one of Caedmon’s Call’s first two albums--My Calm//Your Storm or Just Don’t Want Coffee—and I have a feeling that it was either “There’s A Stirring” or “April Showers.”
Regardless, in that moment, on that night, I knew as clearly as I know my name is Deanna that I’d be going back to camp that next summer. I wish I could describe how I knew, but I can’t. The knowing just settled upon and surrounded me. All of my self-imposed struggles faded. And my desire to return to camp suddenly became right.
And you know what? Even in the middle of my giftedness, I was taken out of my comfort zone that summer and pushed to rely totally on God even though I was surrounded by and able to minister with persons who have become some of my dearest friends. From co-leading worship for the first time to co-leading a cabin full of angel tree campers and learning what it meant to host girls whose lives were very broken, I lived outside my comfort zone…yet I lived out of and within the giftedness that God had given me.
It was a beautiful juxtaposition.
Music is a powerful thing. God has used it to speak to me more times than I can count.
What about you? Do you have a mountain driving experience or a lying in bed moment of clarity that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear. And if you share the song, I’d love to sing along.
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