God Takes Care of Me

1 Kings 15:25-18:46

Acts 10:23b-11:30

Psalm 134:1-135:21

Proverbs 17:9-13

The story in 1 Kings 17 brought back memories of my time in Hume Lake.

I spent the summer of 2014 working in the kitchen at the Christian summer camp at Hume Lake. I talked a little bit about it a while back. The place is gorgeous and I made friends that impacted me for life...but it was a really difficult summer for me.

I was dealing with a lot of stuff before I arrived at camp in June. I was already so depressed and hurting from life and then I came to a very unfamiliar place (I had never been before) with no cell service, working until I was exhausted 24/7, and trying to hear God's voice in my life...I was dry. I was depleted.

Every day I would cry out to God and ask for relief...something! I was burnt. out. Yet, it seemed, every day something more was asked of me. My roommate would need a shoulder to cry on. My co-worker had questions about discerning God's voice. People were coming to me for some reason and I kept telling them, "I don't have the answers! I'm worn out!"

They would ask me about hearing God's voice and I would say, "I can't hear Him now myself!"

But in the midst of my protests God would give me the insight, the wisdom, I guess, because they always walked away looking like I had helped them somehow. And they would come back. It was every day, something.

I didn't understand why these people came to me and I didn't understand what God was doing in my life...I didn't understand anything. But somehow, even though I was so dry and so done, God gave me exactly what I needed to give a little more every day.

And suddenly one day the clouds that had been hanging over my head and heart broke. Barriers were annihilated. Demons were cast out. God's Word penetrated my heart and I felt light and free again. And I remember it rained for the first time all summer that day.

We were outside and it was warm but the sprinkles started and we put our feet in the lake as the rain started coming down and washing away the grime of our work day. And I felt refreshed and when people came to me for help, for advice, for wisdom I felt I had something to offer. My cup was suddenly overflowing rather than scraping bottom.

And I read this story that night. The woman who didn't have enough oil and flour for even herself, yet God asked her to give. And He said it would not run out, He would sustain her through the entire drought "until the day the Lord sends rain on the land." I was moved then and I am moved now. I felt like this woman. It was exhausting, it was awful. I was being poured out daily with the very last of my strength and then quite literally God brought rain and renewed my strength.

I am reminded today of what God did for me that summer, I am grateful. And I am reminded that God takes care of me.