student life 2010 memories

i am leaving in less than an hour to go to student life camp so i feel like this post is appropriate. i found this letter that i had written to myself last year at slc. i can even picture the scene in my head where i wrote it. i was one of the last people done because i had a lot to say to myself-some good, some bad.

anyway, here it is:

lauren,
   God has worked in me SO much this week. Maybe even the most He has in a while because recently i haven't let Him until a few weeks ago at staff camp then mullins. DON'T BLOW THIS! DON'T BLOW YOUR LIFE ON ANYTHING LESS THAN PERFECTION! God is the only perfect being. Everyone else WILL let you down, but not God. No, He will sustain you and keep you going IF YOU LET HIM! God wants your submission to His Will. Remember Student Life Camp when He taught you that jealousy and selfishness are too much for you and you will always be brought down by them unless you give them to God. God can carry that burden because He is all-powerful and your Strength. You can't. [Psalm 68:19] Remember how powerful and great the Bible - God's letter to YOU - is! Read it, meditate on it, and keep it in your heart - very close to you. Memorize it because it is life-changing. Remember how you wrote to have a better quiet time in last year's letter too. that's pathetic. DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN! Remember what God told you that day on the rec field - "lean on Me, hard; I'll hold you, you just lean HARD." God loves you and doesn't want you to go through life aimlessly. Press on toward the goal (Philippians 3:13-14). God loves you more than you can ever imagine. Do this...for Him because He loves you and cares for you so much that He SAVED YOU!      GOD loves YOU!     WOW!
psalm 68:20

God loves you!
<3 lauren

i skipped part of it because it said i should live for Him as a present to Him, but i don't agree with that anymore. a present is something you give someone just because you can but you don't have to. i don't feel like it's right to say that we live for Him as a random favor to HIM because it's the other way around. God loved us first.
"We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19

i encourage everyone to take time every once in a while to write themselves a letter to read several months or even a year later. i truly believe it can help us grow. i admit that it is hard for me to set aside a little bit of time to do that but God has definitely used this letter to convict me of some things. Don't let yourself forget the wonderful "little" moments in your life that God shows you something life-changing. i know i had forgotten some of these things in this letter...things i thought would change my life but i let slip away.