SLAM Week Impact

Journal Prompt

SLAM Nashville week: What did you learn? How were you challenged? What will you take away from this experience?

My Thoughts

This week was a new experience for me. I’ve participated in a lot of SLAM weeks over the years and have gladly given everything I have to the kids at the summer camps. While this is definitely still the case, this week added several factors that made that choice very difficult. First, I’m on Internship and my body, mind, and spirit are tired. They are tired because I’ve been learning my limit and growing my capacity in what I can give in each area. So trying to muster the energy to keep pushing simply was not possible. Instead, and I think this is the wonderful part of Summer Internship, I had to rely on something else that I am still learning how to utilize. Being able to tap into God’s surpassing power for energy while serving the SLAM youth and the kids at the camp.

I was pushed this week because I had to engage in caring for some rather entitled youth that I lacked the desire to serve. Serving the kids who the camp was for was easy. I could rely on the heart God gave me for vulnerable populations and my love for kids, but I could run off of a bleeding heart and not bring the Lord into it at all. When participating in SLAM in high school, I had my facilitators to direct my “bleeding heart” so that it was used well (this is not to ignore the amazing things that God did in me and others during those weeks, because he did. For the sake of this lesson though, I use this phrase to contrast what the Lord wanted me to learn). However, God has called us to serve when we want to serve and when we don’t want to serve to whoever needs it. I was blessed with teachers who taught me how to serve and what kind of heart I am supposed to have for the needy. Others, like some of these SLAM youth, were not. It was not my place to judge them for something they really weren’t even aware of. Instead, I had to tap into the same perspective God has for the youth and serve with the same energy and vigor I had for the kids coming to camp. The example I gave to them was how they were going to learn how to serve those kids. To do that though, it required me to deny myself and ask Jesus for his vision so that I could serve.