Unexpected change.

I'm sitting here at work, watching all the lonely faces go by and I can't help but feel atleast a little bit blessed. Not because there's all this brokeness around me-but that I am not alone.

For some reason, I keep believing this lie. I know it is a lie because I know that God has very specific ways of using me, and I never get a big head about it because it's always Him. But the lie was very convincing and Satan keeps whispering in my ear is "Kelsey...no one needs you. No one. Quit trying. If your God was all powerful then He'd show up, and where is He now?" He just sat perched on my shoulders all day, weighing me down. And that feeling of defeat swept over my whole body and no matter what anyone said to try and relieve it-it was louder than ever.

This stupid but very loud lie kept resounding in my head for the last couple weeks. At first I tried to shut it out, then I tried to talk it out, then I tried to let people convince me otherwise, but nothing worked. I would wake up feeling anxious and lonely and I would just stay in my room in my bed just dreading any form of Vitamin D because I was alone. And nothing and no one could change that. Yesterday I woke up for school and I just couldn't will myself out of bed, so I didn't. I prayed for hours and I opened Job and started to let it pour out all over me but I couldn't hear God. I didn't doubt His presence, but I was hearing Satan way more than Him and it scared me. Hunter and I sat on my favorite roof last night just talking. I tried explaining all of this, but it's jut hard to put into words. Even now I struggle with which buttons to press because it's all so stuck in my head and it's all so painful. And as I was talking to Hunt today about how loud and obnoxious the devil's voice was...something happened.

I reached in my fridge and took a big swig of my mango OJ because that always seems to lift my spirits. I burned a stick of nag and I opened my bible with a sigh, knowing I would be going straight to Job-like always. And right as I opened it...a neatly folded, but torn piece of paper fell into my lap. I mean if that wasn't already a direct sign from the good Lord, I don't know what would be. On the outside it said "SIDD...sorry I don't date" and tears and laughter escaped my body, and I knew it was from Hunter. She had given it to on one of the last days of camp and I guess I had stuck it in my bible after I'd read it. I hadn't read it sense and there it was, sitting on my lap, waiting to be opened.

"So like why is He so good to us? Kels, the Lord is ALWAYS working. How can we ever doubt?"

WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT. Hunter said something to me just minutes before about how she's really excited I get to have lunch with 2 of my campers, tomorrow. She told me to remember how I've impacted their lives and I just couldn't think of it because it made me think of camp and that hurt. So I didn't think about it, which was even worse because I needed to. I needed to remember how God used me because He did in HUGE ways.

"I know you're worried about tomorrow and scared to let Caitlyn go-but He is faithful. Kels, He knows what He's doing whether we see it or not. He is always moving when we least expect change."

OKAY LITERALLY VOMMING. Caitlyn was one of my favorite campers. She's sassy and outgoing, but you know that there's so much going on beneath the surface. So at camp, I dug. I took her aside while we were sitting in God's creating on a bridge over the river, the mountains everywhere you looked and breathing in only the good. I asked her how her year was. It didn't take her alot to tell me...everything. About her drinking problem that started at 15...about her parents divorce...and about her dad's violent behavior. Caitlyn was living in one of the most abusive home's I had ever heard about. Stuff that happened even right before she entered the gates of camp. And I knew that my story now made sense, and I knew that God put her in my cabin for a reason, and I knew she needed to be delivered. That she wanted to be. When Hunter gave me this note, it was the day of parents day. The day her dad was going to come through these same gates, and take my Caitlyn away from me. This safe place she had been in for 2 weeks was about to be diminished and I was breaking in more ways than I ever thought possible. Only hours after Hunter left this note on my backpack, the women's director of camp came up to me. She told me that Caitlyn's mom was here to pick her up, and that she wasn't going home with her dad anymore. I have never felt this kind of pure joy in my life and all I knew to do was to get on my knees and pray to the one true Daddy that would never fail us.

So as I read Hunter's note, I began to sob. We both had no clue what was about to happen just hours after I read the crinkled piece of paper.

"Kels, He knows what He's doing whether we see it or not. He is always moving when we least expect change."

It's been ringing in my head all day. That, and "How can we EVER doubt." I can never doubt.