By faith

So I woke up bright and early at 6:45 this morning, put on my Chick-fil-A uniform, and headed down to the lobby for the continental breakfast sure to fill my stomach.  While eating my dry Cheerios and drinking delicious coffee (pretty close to Corinth, Tera) I was filled by something so much greater.  The Word of God.  Hebrews 11:1 is one of my all-time favorite verses.  But I had never thoroughly read the entire chapter.  It basically gives examples of people in the Bible, who did things purely off of faith.  Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Rahab, and so forth.  These people literally dropped every single thing they had that was familiar to them, and walked somewhere.  They didn't know where they were going.  All they knew was that God was telling them that wherever they were going, it was in His best plan.  The clause "by faith" is mentioned 22 times in that chapter.  Chad, one of the project directors, told us last night that if something is repeated in the Bible two or three times, its usually something work remembering.  How about TWENTY-TWO times?  How ridiculous is it for me to not have faith that God's going to change my life this summer? He did so much greater things in the lives of those in the first books of the Old Testament, and is still doing beyond amazing things.
One of the last verses of the chapter reads, "These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised."  At first when I read it, I was taken aback.  What?  But after continuing: "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect."  Something BETTER?  This might sound really sacrilegious, but from the four hours of Chick-fil-A training videos I watched, something that they emphasized was going beyond expectations. Doing what people expect of you, and then taking it a step further.  And while God isn't in the business of helping you decide if you want to upgrade your number one combo for a small 40 cents more (yes, I've already learned the Chick-fil-A "verbage"), He is there to go so much farther beyond our expectations than we've ever imagined.  Yes, I know God's going to change my life this summer.  But no matter how much I sit and think about it, I'll never be able to have near the expectations that will be anywhere close to the reality of what is going to happen before August 2nd.  I'm making such great friends here.  The community of 40 believers and 10 staff who have such a heart for the Lord, always makes you feel welcome.  Whether its hanging out by the pool or over a meal of low country shrimp boil, you can always find a Jesus conversation going on.  If you have a bad day, you can run to any person here and talk.  Its so amazing.
They're there to help you through hard times.  Last night and today were really tough for me.  Today it was really with missing my family.  Mom, I know you're reading this.  I saved the voicemail you sent me yesterday.  I cried when I got it.  I know you love me so much and are really proud of me.  Thanks for calling.  I didn't call you back last night, cause I knew I would just start crying.  I'm so okay though. :)   I miss all 5 of you crazy Feimster's a whole lot.  But my summer and your summer is going to be so great cause God is watching out for all of us.
Okay, so that last part was a tangent/shoutout.  But its really just how I feel about project at the moment. I'm so excited to be here, and see what finally putting ALL I have into my relationship with the Lord will look like.  It's super exciting.  Tomorrow we have an outreach.  Aka, we walk down the beach and talk to people about Jesus.  Super scary.  But I'm sure I'll have lots of great experiences, and therefore blog posts when I return.