This past weekend, I went to the RUF Fall Conference at Camp Greystone in North Carolina. At first, I thought I would be overwhelmed with the awkwardness that comes from being a freshman surrounded by upperclassmen. However, I soon got over my discomfort as I bonded with students that I hadn’t known super well and I’m so thankful for that blessing! Don’t get me wrong. I still awkwardly shot a strawberry from my plate to the floor with my fork and I may or may not have called an RUF intern’s face fat, but at least no one rubbed honey or shaving cream all over my face while I was sleeping.
My friends and I woke up early to watch the sunrise on the dock. Even though the sky was cloudy, the scenery was beautiful.
Let me just say that the sleeping arrangements and the food were amazing. For $55 (the prodigious Paul Patrick managed to raise donations to give scholarships to the Erskine students), I got to sleep in a semi-bug-free cabin with all of my friends, running hot water, a scarily loud toilet, and cool wooden bunk beds. Oh, and the food was delicious! There was fresh fruit, steaming plates of yummy dishes like grits, meat, bread, taco salad, etc. I thought the camp food would be nasty, but I’m pretty sure I gained three pounds this weekend.
Every morning and evening, there were sessions where all of the RUF groups from different schools would congregate and worship God together in an outdoor pavilion. That was my absolute favorite part of the trip. There’s something magical about being outside and singing praises to God with a body of believers that gives me more joy than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Saturday’s evening session as we stood united in worship.
The speaker at the sessions was the previous campus minister at Western Carolina, Dave Osborne. I really enjoyed his style of teaching because he would save his main point of the lesson until the end and I would never expect the point to be what it was. He focused on the book of Mark and the four things that we can’t exist without: the Father’s voice, knowing our place in the world, understanding the progress of waiting, and being beautiful only through Jesus.
I won’t go into a whole lot of detail about his lessons, but I will share the biggest lesson I got from his teaching:
I need to be thankful for my circumstances and situations, because God has put me exactly where He wants me. Lately I’ve been griping to my friends about how obnoxious people are or how much work I have to do or how annoying it is when people take my clothes out of the dryer without my permission. This weekend, I realized that I had lost focus on what really matters. Instead of making my life about furthering God’s kingdom, my heart was set on expanding my kingdom. I just want to say that my kingdom is a miserable, dark place and the deeper I go, the more miserable and dark I become. When we turn to God, He gives us a refreshing light to cling on to in a dark tunnel. We don’t get happiness from God because He takes away our trouble. God gives us joy by giving us something to depend on and hope in as we deal with every day’s struggles.
I absolutely love singing hymns because their words are so powerful and the melodies are so beautiful. This morning, we sang one of my all time favorite songs, “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder.” The third verse literally made my heart feel like it was being filled to the brim with joy.
Let us sing though fierce temptation
Threatens hard to bear us down
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqueror’s crown
He, Who washed us with His blood,
He, Who washed us with His blood,
He, Who washed us with His blood,
Soon will bring us home to God
Praising God despite all of the temptation and the guilt and the hopelessness that stem from temptation… That’s so powerful. I think that if I walked through life, always keeping “the conqueror’s crown” in mind, I would always be so joyful and I would be so much better at “pressing on toward the goal… for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). That’s honestly something I desire more than anything else in life and I’m so thankful that God used the RUF Fall Conference to wash away my distractions and to refocus me back on Him.
Erskine takes Camp Greystone
Erskine College 
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