Back to the Serious...Kind of...

In early December, I was asked by one of my youth leaders if I would be willing to share about my trip to Greece and also a little bit of my testimony on our youth group's winter retreat. He wanted me to talk about how my trip impacted my life and what I got out of it, and how exciting it was to be in a foreign country. We decided I'd talk for 20 minutes.

Now I've only really spoken in front of a group once, and that was for 2 minutes at my church on Sunday. That had also been in front of 2000 people, lol. But I was kinda nervous, to say the least. But I came up with stuff I wanted to talk about, and I figured it would be great. :) Boy was that a misconception.

I got to Winter Camp, and the first night we had our speaker give the first message (I was scheduled for the next morning). His topic was "Who am I?". No big, I've heard those messages before. First half was pretty easy stuff...He told a few stories about his childhood, and it was pretty cool. The last half though, it seemed like every sentance cut deeper than the last. In the beginning I was smiling and excited to be there, but at the end I had my head burried in my Bible and tears running down my cheeks. Everything he said (stuff about us belonging to God, being special to Him, being created for special purposes, etc.) was soooo true, and I had been ignoring all of it just so I could live in my own pity-party life. But the very last thing he pulled was HUGE. He read Ephesians 1:4, which says, "For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ with His pleasure and will." For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world...He chose ME in Him before the creation of the world. Wow. I know it's true, but it's sooo hard to believe!

Anyway, this is long enough for now. I'll finish the rest of the story later.

Chosen by Him,

<>< Christi <><