By Elise
Elise is a member of our Sr. High Youth Group

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Senior High Winter Retreat for the first time this year. Jim Lovelady spoke over the weekend and I was able to take important lessons away from it all. He mainly spoke about how “We Are What We Love”. Lots of things are after our hearts today and many objects promise the “good life”. I was taught to really take a look at my life and to deconstruct society so that I may reveal the lies sometimes hidden with good things. The problem is that as humans we know right from wrong but continue to act sinfully anyway. The solution is to have a physical faith, acting out what we believe. I realized how we as Christians are to live out the Gospel, believing it, not simply having knowledge about it. Living this out also opens up opportunities to share with others why I act the way I do, because Jesus has done it before me. Those needs and sinful desires I tend to fall into over and over again? Well, I can die to all of them because Christ has promised to raise me up to new life with Him.

Also while on the retreat, I had the ability to both spend time with old friends and meet new ones from the other churches there. My “old friends” had been people I had met on past retreats and mission trips proving that they last. Some of my closest friends have come from these kinds of activities and they are such an encouragement to my faith. These friends have given me people to lean on in times of crisis and pointed me towards Christ. Praying with and for them is a special thing that I have come to cherish over these times. These relationships with fellow believers are something that will last because they are rooted in the Lord.