If you attend Troy University (or any other college with a Campus Outreach ministry) you have more than likely heard at least one person talking about Summer Beach Project. For those of you whom have not heard of it, Summer Beach Project is an opportunity provided for college-aged students during the months of June and July to live in Panama City Beach, Fla., while growing in their faith for Jesus Christ with other college students from a variety of different campuses. While at SBP, the students that take part in it are expected to attend rallies, socials, and other faith-based activities, all while working around 40 hours a week at a job that they find at the beginning of summer. I was told when I signed up that it would be a summer that changed me. I had no idea how accurate this statement would prove to be until right now, my first night not being surrounded by all the wonderful (not to mention wonderfully weird people) that I have grown to love in the past two months, my first night not at Project. Here are some of the things that Summer Beach Project has taught me.

1. Summer Beach Project taught me that I am a daughter of the King of the Universe, and that He desires to have a relationship with me.

Me. He wants me as His child. This irrelevant little college girl that has done nothing of significance and has actually failed Him more times than not, I am important enough to the maker of everyone and everything so much so that he just wants me to call him my Dad. That's huge. Adoption was a theme that I believe stuck with a lot of people this summer, and it definitely affected the way I looked at my relationship with God. I no longer see a need to perform or to please Him. He is my Dad, and He delights in me regardless of both the good and the bad things I may do. As soon as I began to see myself as His daughter whom is loved at all times rather than the orphan that I once was, our relationship was able to grow stronger and deeper in ways that I did not know possible.

2. I realized that Troy University is an amazing college with amazing students (and that West Georgia comes at a close second).

This summer I had the opportunity to make friends with people from both my campus, Troy University, and the university with which we were paired with, West Georgia. I never imagined how close I would become with the people that I met there. The friendships that I made from both of these schools are friendships that I truly believe will last a lifetime. These people that I called strangers just two months prior to our arrival have been there for me in ways that friends I have known so much longer have not been. At Summer Beach Project, there was always someone asking for a one-on-one just to see how you were doing, providing a laugh that makes your gut cramp up from not being able to stop the tears (and in my case, snorts) from coming, and offering a prayer or a word of encouragement when they see through your false act of pretending to be okay. These people legitimately cared about you and your walk with God, and I doubt they'll ever understand just how much they have been a blessing in my life for the past two months. I thank God that He paired us with West Georgia, because otherwise I never would have gotten to know some of the best people I have ever met. This one is for you guys:

Go West. Go wolves.

P.S. West Florida is pretty cool too. Shout-out to my roommate Ginny, who was so brave in the way that she came from a different college than anyone else and still proved to be a social butterfly by making so many people fall in love with her.

3. I learned how impatient and unloving I was.

I genuinely hate conflict and will always attempt to avoid it by any means possible. I have a problem with standing up for myself, which means that I can sometimes bottle up my anger towards other people and just let things be—when in my head, I'm seething with hatred for either that person or the situation. Because of my aversion to outward expressions of anger, I thought that I wasn't really sinning too badly. I mean, I never acted on my anger, so I was good, right? Not quite. The Bible says in 1 John 3:15a, "Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart." It does not say, "Whomever hides their sin in a locked part of their brain and doesn't act on it is good." No, by me having such an impatient and angry heart, it is essentially the same as me murdering someone, and it is unacceptable. God showed me through my summer job and through living with five other girls in one tiny room just how ugly my thoughts could get. I loved these people with my whole heart, but my thoughts about them sometimes are thoughts that I am ashamed to admit I had. God is good, however, and He loves me through this sin that I clearly struggle with and is at work in my heart to turn me away from these thoughts and grow me in my patience and love for people—His children.

4. Going on missions is a calling for any and all Christians, no matter where life may take us.

I personally feel led to one day go into the mission field in a foreign country. I do not know where that will be just yet, but I trust God in His faithfulness to reveal it to me over time. I still have two years until I graduate college, so He has plenty of time for that. If you do not feel that same calling on your life to go and preach the gospel in a different place, that is okay. Not everyone does, because each person is uniquely made by the creator Himself and each person has different talents and callings. That does not, however, mean that you are not called to missions. As a Christian, we are called to proclaim His name and grow His kingdom no matter where we are. At first, it was hard for me to see and understand that God could use me in Troy, Ala., because we live right in the middle of the Bible Belt, but after this summer—through countless rallies, talks, and prayers—it is hard for me not to see our university as a mission field for Him.

5. Lastly, how loving, forgiving, just, and perfect that God, our Father, really is to love a sinner like me through my past, present, and future screw ups, and how He used one summer to flip my world completely upside down.

I am so thankful that He brought me to Panama City Beach, Fla., for the past two months of my life, and that He was faithful enough in my life to pursue me until I gave in to His desires and agreed to go. It was a summer full of laughter, hard work, tears, and prayers. I would not change a second of my time spent at Project, and I cannot express to you just how not ready I am to go back into the real world. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end (except Jesus and Heaven, because they are eternal) and the real world is happening. Thankfully, I am prepared for this dose of reality now more than ever, and I look forward to seeing the changes that occurred and realizations acknowledged while at Project play out on campus in my life and the life of the others that were there. God is good, regardless of if I am at project or back in Troy, and that's really all I have to say about it.