Hello! This isn't a poem, but a true snippet from my life I think is valuable to share with all of you.

Over a month ago, I went to my church's Youth Camp. It's a Christian summer camp for five days and I've gone every year for the past 5-ish years and my best friend Sarah has been going for 4-ish. These past several years, I haven't had many friends. Because of my social anxiety, Sarah was the only person I hang out with in real life because anyone else makes me uncomfortable. So I had over 3 years of only having Sarah as my real life friend, and then I had some online friends from here who gave me a lot of pain and mental health problems. But I also had/have a very good online friend who is now also my best friend and I have met her 4 times in person. And she went to camp with us :) Not only that, but in the past year, I have made good, imperson-friends with a girl named Seraiah. And that may not sound like a big deal, but for me, having not wanted to hang out with anyone other than one person, to have found someone I'm completely comfortable with and click with, is basically a miracle. And she got to go to camp too! Not only that, but we have a group of "camp friends," people we only see at camp, but we feel really close to and spend all our time at camp together. So this was truly the first time in my life that I had all of my friends, every single one, in the same place at the same time. And it was so lovely.

Breakdown: 

My irl best friends: Sarah and Seraiah

Online best friend: Lizzie

Camp friends: Nathan, Tyler, Kaley, Amanda

Anyway, on the last full night of camp, the worship is always very emotional for me and a lot of other people. The Holy Spirit truly has this way of just laying on your heart how much He loves you and it's a very moving experience, as well as how convicting it can be to see that we fall so short in responding to his boundless love. So this year on this day, Sarah started crying and she sat on the floor and covered her face. Tyler and I were watching her to see if she was okay and when she started crying harder, Tyler and I sat beside her. Kaley was sitting on her left side and Tyler sat on her right and wrapped an arm around her. I sat in front of Sarah and put a hand on her knee and I felt really emotional and I started crying too. Tyler saw and rested a hand on my shoulder and I just kind of buried my face in Sarah's knees and Tyler put his other arm around me as Sarah, Kaley and I cried. I can't explain to you the way it felt, it was just a very emotional, moving experience. Sarah and I kept grabbing each other's hands and squeezing them or holding each other in different ways and we didn't even have to say it out loud, but I know we were all just telling each other that we so strongly love and appreciate each other. Then I felt a hand on my back, then another. Seraiah and Lizzie were behind me, with their hands on me. We were all crying, Sarah and I were audibly sobbing. Tyler kept singing along to the worship songs while we were doing this and it just made the whole thing more powerful. Then Tyler started to cry. And I don't mean just cry, but sob. And Tyler has said that it takes a lot to make him cry before, he's not one to just start crying. But he was crying because his friends were crying and because the emotion was so heavy in that room. And then these two girls/young women, one worked at the camp, or maybe they both did and they started praying with us. They put their hands on us, they leaned over us, and they prayed, and they didn't even know what they were praying for. They just felt and saw the emotions we were experiencing in that moment. And I couldn't hear most of what she prayed because the music was so loud, but I felt it. I felt so very cared for and loved. And then Amanda and Nathan joined us and we were all together, crying, loving each other, feeling emotions and the power of God move in our hearts and it was so beautiful. We all loved each other so much that we sat on the floor and held each other and ugly cried together. After having so many friends who were toxic to me, I just had to stop and think "Wow. I have these friends who truly love me the way I am and I am never letting them go." This story may not sound like a big deal to you, you really had to experience it to understand. But I have never in my life felt so loved and appreciated and it was such a beautiful, powerful moment, I wanted to share it with you all because you're my family :) 

I only got to experience this through knowing Jesus so I am so thankful that I was raised in an environment conducive to me giving my life to Him. If any of you have any questions about God or getting saved, I will answer them to the best of my ability and I am always happy to pray for you. Not trying to sound all "preachy" I just want to share this with you. God loves you so much, and he loves me so much more than my friends do. So as much as I knew in that moment they loved me, I know God loves me infinitely more. Isn't that beautiful?

I love you all, thanks for reading if you did! <3 :) 

--xoxAnnee