Unplanned Blessings

We just got back from our annual trip to Florida Family CFO... the same place where, three years ago, God inspired me to start this blog. One of the things I got to do this year was lead the Communion service for the Youth. Every morning we would meet at 7:30 AM on the dock extending into beautiful Lake Yale in central Florida. 

The service was never fancy. Just me and up to eight teens and pre-teens, sharing some time out in part of God's marvelous creation. We would chat a bit, listen to the birds, watch the alligators, read the Word together and take part in Communion.

When I was preparing for camp and getting ready for all the things I knew I had to do, this was nowhere on my radar. I was not thinking at all about participating in this part of each day's events. There were Creative Writing sessions to prepare... Programs and notebooks to put together... Meetings to plan and organize... All sorts of things to fill my mind and plate that were not anything to do with Youth Communion!

After we arrived however, God intervened. It turned out that while we had planned to do a little something different with the organizing of the Youth activities this year, we didn't think about the Communion piece. This wasn't something that we had worked all the way through. On Saturday evening, several of us discussed it and left it in God's hands, believing that He would direct us in what to do. Well, at about 2:30 AM Sunday morning, He did just that!

He woke me up, not only to tell me that I was supposed to lead it, but to give me the idea of what to do. We were to "work through the Psalms", as I heard His voice in my spirit say. 

So that's what we did! Each day we took one Psalm, read it and talked about how it applied to our lives. And of course, each day we concluded with partaking in Communion together. We read Psalms 27, 37, 86 and 139 Monday through Thursday. On Friday, someone suggested that the Youth participate and lead the Adult Communion service. So, each of these four Psalms were read by the Youth to the adults, as they meditated on the words... Just as we had done in the preceding days. I was so proud of these kids! This became the highlight of my entire week. 

And then, to top it off, they wanted to meet one more time - on Saturday - for one more session. Typically we don't meet then because we leave camp right after breakfast. And so several of them showed up, (along with a couple of the adults!) for one last reading - Psalm 16 - and they declared it out loud as they were gearing up to leave camp just a couple of hours later. 

So, just as God spoke to me three years ago about being obedient and "Living Unfiltered for God", He provided another example of the blessings that will follow if we but hear His voice and do what He says to do. I never thought I was going to be doing what I did last week, but I am so incredibly grateful that He blessed me with the opportunity to do so.

Photo Credit: Rachel Gage
Location: Milton, GA, USA

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