THE SAFEST PLACE How do 88 students meet as strangers and leave 15 weeks later as a family? Some people accuse places like the Focus on the Family Institute (FFI) of being a Christian "bubble." For me, it became one of the safest places I've ever known. While I learned something from every aspect of the Institute, my most valuable lesson came from the community experience. FFI is the place I learned to thank God for how He created me instead of praying that He would make me someone different. This community spoke God's very words into my life and helped free me from all the lies Satan tried to tell me about my value and worth as a human being. I honestly had very little idea what authentic Christian community looked like until I got to the Institute. Although I am a very social person and I have always loved people, I have fought a perpetual fear of rejection for a good portion of my life. I felt as if I was always on the outside looking in. I wanted more than anything to share my heart, but I often felt that when I did reveal what I was truly thinking and feeling, people tossed it aside without caring how much it cost me to be vulnerable. But something amazing happened to me during my time at the Institute and now I am leaving with almost none of this fear intact. I'm not even sure exactly when it happened. Maybe it was the night some of the guys had us over for dinner and just encouraged us that being a godly woman is attractive by reading a verse from Proverbs 31. Maybe it was the night I couldn't stop crying because Satan was pelting me with lies about my worth. Three of the girls here gathered around me in prayer and taught me that it was OK to be weak for once in my life. Maybe it's the way that the men here respect the women every day in simple things like opening our doors, pulling out our chairs, or letting us go first in line. Maybe it was the day in Family Studies Class that I confessed some very deep wounds and the other three people in my group spoke words of healing and gathered around me in prayer, instead of feeling awkward because of my tears. Maybe it's all the late night conversations where my thoughts and questions were welcomed and appreciated instead of rejected. Regardless of how it happened, I just know that the community here taught me to see that everything God made was good … and that means everything He created me to be is good. God laid the book of Joshua on my heart while I was here, and as I read, I felt like it was written for people exactly like me. This is His promise: "No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you" (1:5, NIV, emphasis mine). I can go home with the same confidence God and my new family have instilled in me because they helped me realize that not only is my heart attractive to them, but also that my God has never rejected me. And He never will. Amanda Shelley - FFI Alum. - Spring 2006 Lincoln,IL

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