High School Retreat

This past week my school took our annual High School Retreat, and, for the first and last time, I enjoyed myself the ENTIRE trip! I used to have this habit of entering the week with a dread that sunk into my bones, because as much fun as I knew I would have, I hate athletics! My muscles still haven't seen a gym in YEARS! Lucky for me, my body is naturally athletic and by some weird turn has retained a few muscles—mostly those random ones used for sprinting; however, only about 3 of these 8 games are sprinting, while the rest are hand-eye coordination and brute strength. It is a MIRACLE every year they don't send someone to the hospital.

   There's a particular game called "The Sphere of Destruction" that always leaves several trampled on the ground. This game has been taken away by administration several times because of the injuries left in the pitiless sphere's wake, but for some odd reason, the injuring tradition is inevitably reinstated. This game involves the largest inflatable ball you've ever seen stretching up a mile high (or 8' but who's keeping track? 0_o), and the sheer strength of the opposing teams. The goal is to push the ball (on the ground mind you) through one of your teams 2 goals. If the ball goes in the air, you need to let it touch down again before you resume smashing your body into it like the football players under some kind of heartless coach. It's usually about 7 on 7 and I have never seen such competition as when we unleash the boys of each team against each other! It's as if all their years teenage angst have led up to this moment of redemption! Ridiculous!
     This year, one of my co-captains, a broad shouldered, muscled 18yr old, was pushing right along side me when I looked up and....he was GONE! I continued throwing myself against the ball, and as it rolled through the goal, I found my co-captain. He had fallen beneath the ball and was on his back kicking the ball with his feet and punching with his hands....we got the point!!
     I hated these games because I always felt this dread of injury (I've had surgery, been there/done that, NEVER going back) and my inability to measure up to my inevitably athletic team. This year however, I felt God challenged me to throw open my arms and embrace this last retreat, because this year I would be leading, and heaven knows where the underclassmen might end up with zero direction. It was my own personal "Sphere of Destruction," and I could enjoy it and roll with the bloody noses, or grow ulcers over it, then die.

     As a senior this year, I'm bidding adieu to this beloved, ultra-competative, bruising, all-around fun, set-aside time we have with God as highschoolers, and this year I met with God in a beautiful way.

     God really hit me hard this year with the power of the cross. God is God, and He could've found another way to redeem mankind. I mean, seriously! He is all-powerful, but Jesus looked at us and He so loved us that He payed the HIGHEST price he possibly could for us! He died and endured all of God's hatred and anger towards sin so that not one drop of the torrent reached us. God allowed His terrible righteous anger to pour over His son! Jesus met all of God's fury, and all of His wrath, as if Jesus had been the liar, the cheater, the murderer. It was as if Jesus Himself, the only perfect human, had told that white lie to his parents, or slaughtered millions of Jews in the holocaust. Of course He did none of this, but legally, as in a court, He was declared guilty for all these charges so that we may live. God CRUSHED His son, in a way we will NEVER understand. How hurt then must he feel when we choose something else over him? How much would that hurt? This is completely imperfect illustration but I highly recommend reading this>> The Room

Adios blogging world!
                                  ~Kylie