Theology of the Body camp

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

First off, happy fourth of July to all of you in the United States, I hope it has been a blessed day for all of you. Last week I was super blessed to be able to attend an Echo camp put on by Dumb Ox productions, the camp was Theology of the Body for Teens. It was so amazing! For those of you who aren't familiar with Theology of the Body, it was put together by Pope John Paul the second and has been adapted since for teens. It is essentially a collection of teachings that relate to our bodies and the marvelous theology behind them. The camp was a few days long and I grew so much in faith and community with everyone there. When people show up for God, God answers in such beautiful ways!

One of the things that stuck out most as a "theology of the body" message to me was this, human beings are the only creatures that God created that have both body and soul. Our bodies and our souls, before the fall of man, were in perfect union with each other. After Adam and Eve transgressed they became disconnected. That is why "I do what I hate" (Romans 7:15) because I am no longer in perfect union with my body. That does not mean that we are not our bodies. When someone punches you in the face you don't say, "You just hurt my body!" you say, "You just hurt me!". We as human beings are both body and soul, and one day after we die our bodies will be raised up and made new. That is one of the beautiful things about Jesus' assumption into heaven, since he was without sin his body was brought into heaven with him. There is so much beauty in who we are, and so there is so much beauty in our bodies.

During the week I really felt God open my mind to so much of his truth. One thing that blessed me SO much during the week was a reminder that God is so big, vast, unimaginable and wondrous! We cannot contain him to a few experiences, or a few memories, because that would be tacking him to time and he is not in time. He is timeless and engulfs time itself. He is so much larger than we could possibly imagine, even if we dive in deep we can always go infinitely deeper! This has little to do with theology of the body, but it stuck with me so much that I wanted to share with you.

I hope to continue posting things in accordance with what I learned at the ECHO camp, but I wanted to share a little with you now. Please pray for me, Faith Camp is fast approaching (you can read a little more about Faith Camp in one of my recent posts) and I am so excited for it! Please pray specifically for good weather for Faith Camp, and for the girls that will be in my cabin. I am getting excited about the beautiful week that God has planned! Faith Camp itself is from July 11th to the 15th if you would remember it in your prayers during that time. I am praying for you and hope that you have a blessed couple of weeks!

Peace and love in Christ,

Alyse