A New Journey!!

   I've been dying to get my hands back on my blog for months! But thanks to an incredibly busy schedule, finding time to write consistently was next to impossible. However, today officially starts my summer! I am headed to my home away from home to begin a new summer with my camp family! I love staff training week. We have a lot of new staff this year and I'm excited to get to know them and watch them grow this summer.
   This past Friday I said goodbye to my students for the summer. Man my heart breaks to leave them. I am so thankful for the school year that I have had with them. Such an incredible class of children but oh how I love their families as well! I haven't bonded this closely to so many families in my three years of teaching. They all have been so supportive and encouraging this school year. There was a lot going on and many changes. How thankful I am for a group of families that have loved me through each day and always saw the best in me. I have been so richly blessed beyond description! I'm going to miss them so much this summer!OK, enough tears!!!
   This past 9 months have been some of the hardest months I've gone through in a long time. God has stretched me and pulled me in so many ways that I thought I couldn't go. I have lost a camp brother to suicide, 3 campers to various types of death. All of them sudden and unexpected. My life has not gone as I planned or how I necessarily wanted. But I am walking into my summer more in awe and more in love with my God than ever before. I haven't always had the right attitude about the circumstances in my life, but there is one thing I know. My God sees the whole picture. I see only a part. I am His creation and He is molding me and the life around me into what I need to be. A friend once told me, everyday when she walks into her classroom and sits down behind her desk before her day starts, she sits and prays, "God I anxiously await your presence today." i was so convicted. How many days do I get up and not look for Him around me in my day? Way more often than I want to admit to you. I have that quote written down and it lays on my desk. Every day I look at it and read it and pray the same thing. I'm ready for new summer. It is a new beginning and its going to be one of the best!!! My God is already there waiting on me to discover it. I am so excited that He is joining me on my summer journey through paradise! I cannot wait to see His presence everywhere!
   So here I go into my new journey! I cannot wait to drive to camp! I leave in only 15 min!! This drive is always a favorite. It takes an hour, but once I hit that last stretch just before I arrive at camp, adrenaline kicks in and I can barely contain my excitement! Hope I don't scare the new people away!!  I cannot wait to tell you about our new adventures this week with our new friends!! I'm so excited! Thanks for joining me and my God on my awesome journey through paradise!