God's DIY Project

This past week at Wolf Mountain we didn't have any Junior Campers so we had the week off from normal activities. However, this is not to say that staff was without responsibilities. We spent the week working on different projects around camp. Two of the large projects I got to work on were cleaning, sanding, and painting an old Coca-Cola trailer and also creating (from scratch) a flower planter.

It's quite interesting how God uses these instances throughout the week to teach me little life lessons. Two weeks ago, a bunch of campers from Nevada stayed at Trailhead. At the end of the week when they were all ready to head home a bunch of the kids were wearing similar shirts. They were bright neon colors and on the back it said, "God's not done working on (insert name)." I complimented them because I love that thought. We are God's project. We were each created in His image, but we will not be perfected until we reach Heaven one day. However, each day that we live our Christian lives, we should be striving to be more like him.

This week as we worked on cleaning up the old Coca-Cola trailer to use for storage, I noticed that in order to make it look beautiful we had to first make it ugly. The first step was to clean up the obvious dirt and grime. We washed off the dust and got rid of the cobwebs. It looked better when it was cleaned up a little, but you could tell it still had a long way to go before it was done. The next step was to sand it down. After the sanding process, the trailer looked rough, almost worse then it did after the washing! It seemed we had taken a step back, but in order for the paint to stick to the trailer we had to get rid of the old paint and rust. Finally after sanding we began painting, but it took a couple days. Why? Because one coat of paint was not enough! Paint was exactly what the trailer needed, but it was a constant process of touching up spots that kept getting messed up. Now at the end of the process, the trailer looks so nice! Me and the rest of the team that worked on it were so proud, but if you look closely you can still see spots that aren't perfect, or that have a little rust left. Does that mean the trailer can't be used because it's not perfect? No, absolutely not!

I'm sure reading through the above paragraph you know where I'm going with this, but just as I worked on a team this past week to fix up the Coca-Cola trailer, God is working on us. We are dirty then we get cleaned up. Sometimes we think we're all done, but we're not even close! God's still got lots to do in our lives. Next, God has to sand down areas of our lives. Sometimes it's hard to see how this step is helpful, and it can hurt, but you have to keep the end goal in mind. We will be used by God! It may seem that we're just getting worse, but don't lose faith. He's not finished with you yet! Then God starts painting and bringing newness to our life. But it doesn't happen all of a sudden; it's a process, and even after it's all said and done, we won't be perfect. People can still pick at us and say, "Look! I can see you used to be ugly, why should I be like you if you're not perfect!" But God can still use us. No, we're not perfect, but God is. And God can use imperfect people to complete His perfect plan. Isn't that great news? :)

-GreenGirl

Fixing up the old Coca-Cola trailer. 

The finished result! :D