I'm not that girl anymore

Oh yea. I have a blog. So easily forgotten....

This month I was handed an incredible opportunity. A mysterious uncle of mine named Moses sent me a message asking me to be staff at Tillamook Outdoor School. Every year he does this to me! Every year he pulls on my heart via e-mail message and I fight the urge to go. But why would I want to go? Why would I want to go to a camp where I only know like 6 people? Why would I want to push my comfort bounds even farther? So every year I politely turn him down with some sort of excuse that is severely lacking in believability and every year he sends a gracious e-mail back pretending to believe my excuse and always saying "well maybe next year" knowing full well that I will never come back. It's not that I didn't have wonderful time my senior year in high school as a counselor. But it was hard back then to make friends and I knew it would be no different this year. Well, what I "knew" turned out to be completely absurd.

You see, I didn't factor in one very important component. I'm not that girl anymore.

The Jemima PLBC knows today is not at all who I was in high school. Let me paint the picture of who I was. I was non-existent. If you asked anyone from my high school what my name is they might be able to tell you considering my name is... unusual. But that's all they would have known. I was the girl that didn't talk, most definitely didn't have a personality, and didn't care to try and get to know anyone. I had my 5-6 friends and I thought it would be best to just keep it that way because then I wouldn't have to put myself on the line to make new friendships. I didn't want to risk rejection so I rejected myself. In retrospect it was foolish, but it was the only way I could deal with my severe social anxiety. I was sad really. I had a loud mouthed, opinionated, social girl inside of me but despite all my efforts I couldn't get her out. My self esteem was so low that if you graphed it, it would have been in the negatives. I hated myself, I hated my body, and I hated life. The only place I felt like I fit was at church because those were the people I knew from childhood and I was comfortable enough around them to be myself. That's probably why I have wanted to be a youth pastor because I want to make youth comfortable at church and help them grow like the people at my church did. High school was full of judgment and social classes and I despised it. I was significantly bigger then I am now, so that didn't win me any friendships with the popular, (later found out) bulimic girl crowd. I've never been interested in conforming to look like them but so many times in high school I wished I could be them. Life seemed easier. I had programmed my brain to hate myself. I related everything to my size. "If I wasn't such a whale then they would have picked me for their study group.", "If I wasn't so obese then I would be able to be social." etc... It was an act of God that got me to Outdoor School. I still don't understand how I committed to do it because it was so outside of my comfort zone. When I got there I discovered that my self esteem was so low that when we did the "web of life" exercise as a group of counselors I was convinced that this group of 12 people wouldn't be able to pick me up and lift me through the web. I actually thought I was so heavy that no group no matter how strong they were would be able to lift me. And when they did, something in me broke. Something changed. Something came alive.

Fast forward to where I'm at now. I drove up to camp on a Friday night and I was terrified. I was just hoping I would immediately see someone I knew and could cling to them for the rest of the week. Well camp doesn't work like that! I knew only a few people but I wasn't working with any of them. I was working along side four other staff members who I had never met. We lived in a shady house that we named "The Galaxy" because our role on staff was as STARs (Super Talented Adult Resource). We all slept in the same room and there was no escape for me. I had to socialize and I had to work at it! The first two days were a little rough because I had to remember all the songs for camp and act like I knew what I was doing for the sake of the counselors I was leading. But before I knew it the week was coming to a close and I had made lifelong friendships. The girl high schoolers I was mentoring were telling me that I was like a big sis and that some of the things I had told them at our little campfires they would keep with them for years. I had done the "web of life" again with complete confidence and success and I couldn't be more proud of myself. I am not the girl I once was. I love myself now, I understand who I am in Christ and I am able to be myself around people. It's crazy to see where I used to be and where I am now. But the week at camp was a great reminder of that.