January 2009 Celebration Church Retreat

For those of you who are going 'Celebration, what the heck is that?', Celebration is a youth church retreat that I have participated in and staffed several times.  I am posting a few notes that I had written after celebration. If you want to find out more about it go to North Texas Celebration's Web Page.  This was originally written as a facebook note on January 26, 2009

 I was kind of dissapointed because I asked to be a family gopher and instead they put me on caritas. It wasn't a big deal, but I really enjoy small group activities. But then I thought, you know maybe I was put on Caritas for a reason, I will just trust that it is in God's plan.


CARITAS WAS AWESOME!!! It was so fun to pray in the middle of the night and sort caritas and hand out warm fuzzies, I really enjoyed it. I am really glad that I just decided to go along with the flow. I think the thing I liked most was just getting to hang out with the participants and staff. I really like how everyone at celebration has the attitude that serving God and doing spiritual things can be a whole lot of fun, they do not have to be super serious, as long as your heart is in the right place. It is so liberating to stand in wonder in God's grace at one minute, and then laughing with your freinds the next. I think some people miss out on that kind of joyful, loving, and just Jesustastic kind of laughter. I also learned a lot about God's relationship with other's too. I guess this is common, but sometimes I have a hard time imagining other's having a relationship with God like I did. But after reading the stuff in the prayer journal and in other ways, I really had some insight in to the spiritual lives of us teenagers. It really amazing to connect with people our age through our relationship with Jesus.


I also learned a few things about myself. First of all, its wierd, physical pain will not make me cry at all, but I cried like three times at celebration. Second, like I talked about at closing, I think I have overcome looking at the outside of people. Whenever I feel like shunning someone because of the outside, I remember celebration and how I overcame that. You guys are awesome!!!! After closing, I was like REALLY REALLY happy. I felt like bursting out IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE ALIVE. I actually did, with some help from others. It is amazing how much better and more joyful you feel when filled with Christ's love than that kind of fake happiness that comes with the possession of material things.