7 Days {edited}

Twenty-one

We had our fourth session after dinner, and it was good. This time God made trees and plants. We sang a sweet song called "Beautiful Things."

All this earth
Could all that is lost
Ever be found
Could a garden come up
From this ground
At all?

All around
Hope is springing up
From this old ground
Out of chaos
Life is being found
In you.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things
Out of dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things
Out of us.

It repeated itself a lot, so I caught on quickly and started singing along. I felt the Holy Spirit moving in the room, and without hesitation, I lifted my hands high in the air. I'd seen lots of people doing it at song time, and I always wondered why they did it. But now I knew. It made you feel connected to God, as if you were reaching out to touch His hand.

When the song ended and worship time was over, we were dismissed to our small groups. Since Emily could join, and we all had our Bibles this time, we had our second small group of the day.

I was the only person without a Bible, but I was definitely going to buy one when I got home.

In small group, we talked about the sermon and our favorite plants. Mine was the sunflower.

"Do you have any prayer requests?" Sarah asked.

"I still need to work on focusing on God," Cami replied. "So far I've been thinking mostly about the boys...but I want to dig deeper and get to know the Lord a little more."

Sarah wrote that down. "Anyone else?"

Jordyn and Emily didn't have anything. But I did.

"Can you just pray for my mom? She's...well, it's a long story. But we haven't been getting along very well, for a few years now, really. And I want to restore that relationship. It's just really hard to accept her the way she is sometimes. And I don't think she'll love the idea of me being a Christian."

"We'll definitely be praying for her. And for you," Sarah said sincerely as she wrote down the request. "Remember, God can do anything. He can reach even the hardest of hearts. If you keep praying for your mother, God will come through for you. I believe that. Do you?"

"I do."

"Good. Then let's pray."

We all held hands around the circle and prayed for Cami and my mom. Then we closed out small group and went to our rooms to get ready for bed.

We still had some time until lights out, though, so I decided to go to the game room with Emily. We were in our pj's, but it wasn't too embarrassing because we'd put on sweatshirts and joggers for pajamas.

"What do you want to play?" Emily asked once we'd reached the rec hall.

"Um..." I glanced around the room at all the games. There was a gym, a ping-pong table, a pool table, and even an indoor swimming pool. "Let's play ping-pong." I sucked at pool and neither of us had brought our swimsuits there. So we played ping-pong.

What I lacked in sports skills, I made up for in games like these. The victory was mine!