“Go.”
“Why? Why me? Why now?”
I originally chose to attend the Every Nations Campus (ENC) conference based solely on the video about last year’s conference, which this month’s Campus Ministries Hub presented.
I didn’t have a deeper reason. Like my decision to go to China on cross cultural last semester, I just did it. I didn’t anticipate what was to come. I had no way of knowing how my life would be moved and changed.
I volunteered to cover the event for The Weather Vane simply because I knew that I could. I was planning out possible interview subjects, I talked with Eric, one of our photographers, and I made sure that this would be excellent, unbiased coverage of the event.
After returning from the event, I knew that I couldn’t write this like every other article. The experience was too powerful; it was too life- changing. This past weekend was everything and nothing; God’s presence was by my side through it all. This needed to be a different kind of article.
During the conference, I called my boyfriend from the hotel room in Chantilly because I was so overcome with the Holy Spirit that I had to share that experience. I had to tell him, not suggest to him, that we would go to the next ENC Conference—the world conference—in July.
We have to. This is one of my nonnegotiables. He sounded concerned, so I jumped on him for that.
“Why aren’t you excited? Why are you being so closed off? Please, tell me all of your thoughts,” I said.
It’s crazy. If I say that this conference changed my life while also opening up my mind to how wonderfully and present God already is, was, and has always been within my life, then I sound crazy. I realize this, but I’m still so excited and confused and everything all at once. I still have so many questions.
How do I make more time for God? How do I pursue what I am called to do even if that completely changes my original plan?
Why did I choose China?
Why have I seen the worst type of pain in my best friend? Why did I have to experience that? Why do I feel so deeply?
Why is it difficult for me to find the right words to speak aloud, yet while writing, the words come so easily?
Why am I like this? Why am I constantly battling between wanting to get to know and talk to new people but also being too timid, too anxious, too scared to speak up?
I am so painfully introverted, yet I know what I know, and I am never afraid to speak passionately to those things.
During that weekend, the connections not just to the people in the space around me, but my own experiences, were so incredible. I, along with a few of my EMU brothers and sisters, felt a call so strong that tears were often abundant.
The conference itself included worship unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Upbeat, fast-paced, current songs got everyone to their feet; then those same songs broke everybody to the ground. Wonderful speakers shared God’s word, but they also discussed the importance of how the Holy Spirit moves within all of us. This movement is shown through our gifts and our strengths, but is also shown every time we handle more than we ever imagine that we can.
What pushed me to tears was the realization that God’s love was in that place and is really, truly here around me now.
It does not matter where you come from. It does not matter where you are. It does not matter where you are going. Regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, age, social economic status, God still loves you.
God loves us all the same regardless of our sins, regardless of how much we know, or we don’t yet know about Him. He is already here.
I sound crazy; I know, but there’s no other way to explain the power and love of Jesus.
ENC meets weekly for EMU small group on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. in the Discipleship Center and large group, which includes JMU and Bridgewater as well as EMU, on Thursdays at Divine Union Community Church at 7:30 p.m.
