In the afternoon I went treasure hunting with many other people who were at Bethel for the conference or for BSW. We split up into smaller groups and "coincidentally" I ended up in my mom's group. It was totally a God thing though because we got to spend the afternoon together instead of separately. We didn't have the most "successful" time treasure hunting, but I still feel like my heart came out with a great testimony because I had no disappointment in my spirit at all by the end of the afternoon. On the way back to the church I was sharing this feeling with my group and referring to the penny story I shared with you all earlier and how big of an impact that exercise has made on my faith. I feel like (because of the pennies) I've been able to experience the truth that God's power is not conditional upon anything to do with me; in fact I think it's safe to say that God's power is unconditional, even though we can't explain why some people get healed and others don't when we pray for them. All I know is that it's my responsibility to operate in absolute faith so that I'm constantly available as a vessel of God's power and never doubting His capabilities. After the afternoon of treasure hunting, I didn't have any great story to tell about how one of my words matched up with anyone I talked to; however, my spirit was somehow built up by simply following through with what I had heard God say to me regardless if it looked like the way I thought it should. And it turned out that what I saw tangibly didn't dictate how I felt about God's ability to use me. This is so huge because I've definitely previously struggled with feeling like God's power is somehow either given or taken based on my performance or how much I pray or something, but it's not. I felt like my spirit was ruling over my mind, and the natural didn't trump the supernatural reality I was aware of, which is really the best possible outcome!
This evening we had a birthday party for my roommate Amanda, which was a blast! We probably had about 20 people or so over for a BBQ dinner. We made grilled chicken, potato salad, zucchini, and punch among other things; and we ate oatmeal pie - made from scratch by Katy - for dessert and sang happy birthday with 21 candles! It was a great time to mingle with friends, chat, and eat good food.
For a brief time tonight I was able to meet up with my mom and my cousin again, which was great. We went to the Cold Stone that's shown in the "Finger of God" movie! Haha. It was refreshing to catch up with my mom, as always.
At the end of the night we made an attempt to go stargazing that didn't pan out as expected, though I'm sure we'll try again. We were planning to drive somewhere, but Dougen wasn't back with the van, so we couldn't all fit in Amanda's car. Instead of giving up we tried to walk farther out of town, but that really got us no where so we turned around. It was a nice walk, but we didn't actually get much stargazing. I think we'll make another attempt soon when we have the van and can drive out to the mountains away from the city.
Tomorrow I'm going to church with my mom and my cousin, out to lunch to say goodbye to them before they leave for home again (which will be sad), and then who knows what else the day will bring? Good things I'm sure.
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