really letting go

We had our youth camp over the weekend, and God did some amazing things in the lives of our students. On Saturday, we had lots of issues - things that distracted us from what God wanted to do, things that were fracturing relationships, causing friction - and yet despite this (or maybe because of this) on Saturday night, God broke through in a powerful way. We had the students write down things they needed to give up to God, and then have them come forward and burn them. There was a sense that our students had often given up lots of things to God, but kept taking them back, so as a symbol of this, we wanted to let them have a way of knowing they'd let go and these things were now gone - unable to be read, picked up, looked at. It was a powerful time of restoration, as the students (many of them amidst great pain) processed what it meant to let these things go, and then did. We offered them the opportunity at the end of that time to come forward and allow the image of the ashes and fire burning to be captured in their minds, to help them this week when they are tempted to take those things back. Many of them took this opportunity (and we took some video footage of the same image), and I think it's going to become a useful tool to keep reminding them of the deep work God did in their lives.