My evening watching the moon landing forty five years ago this week was unique, a small black and white TV out on a porch surrounded by 150 young campers. I had Tommy Pittman in my lap, the camp's cutest kid, and we all stayed up late for that historic event. It was my first full time ministry, being a counselor and swim and canoe instructor at Camp Alpine.
The next year I was a counselor at a retreat for high school kids and made friends with two teens named Beth. I remember encouraging them to follow the Lord and it became clear over the next years that one Beth did and the other did not. Just last week the faithful Beth found my name on Facebook and thanked me for helping her so long ago as a searching teenager. Now that is personally joyful to me.
I am convinced that any degree of holiness we achieve and practice is a gift from God for our own benefit in this life, and not some sort of way of earning points for heaven. Beth told me the other Beth had experienced a difficult life of relationships. Very sad.
It was so neat to see the teenager in the grandmother I saw in her pictures on Facebook. Life is a journey of faith and trust.
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