I loved the anticipation of campers coming Sunday afternoon. I loved sitting there trying to guess which girls would be in the Miracle (aka, cabins 7 and 8).
Camp for me was always such a place of rest. I slept better at camp, even though it was hot and sticky. I miss falling asleep to the crickets and the frogs at night. I miss having porch time where I could talk out all my frustrations and laugh my head off and share about how campers were learning more about life in Christ, or maybe just about how they did something funny. I felt at home there. This is the first summer since I was 6 that I haven't been to camp at all.
[Except that one summer where I had to go to California to visit family instead of going to camp. I cried.]
Life was so much more simple at camp. I knew true fellowship and felt love and support. It was a great time to grow and to learn. I always felt challenged to love my kids and fellow staff deeper.
When I think back to how little I was when I first started as a counselor, I think that it is insane that they hired me. I was a whopping 17 years old, which is so crazy. I was so clueless, and I refused to take my whistle off [power trip]. I love how comfortable I became and how I used to dread staff meetings because I was afraid of the staff, and then I grew to love them because every one one staff became my friend. At camp I learned that God doesn't need me, but is willing and pleased to and many other important lessons.
It wasn't perfect, but it was a bubble of safety and it has never been easy to leave it and face the real world. I know it's part of growing up. I can't ever imagine loving a job so much. If I could, I would be a camp counselor for forever. I won't ever get over camp, but I hope that I love teaching just as much. Sometimes I think that we want to keep going back to a place because we've met God there before. Part of growing and trusting in God is knowing that as we move forward, He has already made a way and will be there for every bit of it.
currently listening to: The Shins
4 comments:
so 2 things.
#1, i definitely agree that sometimes we keep going back to a place because we met God there. i think that's part of what me and allen do every time we go back to greensboro, or even more specifically, tate st.
it's why i go to certain places when i'm at school, or why i have my retreat of silence at approximately the same place every rockbridge. I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing to go back to places just because it's somewhere you met God.
In the bible you always hear about places in the old testament where they set up stones at places they met God, but rarely do you ever hear about them again. but then, places like jerusalem are super important in the old testament. but this was all a long winded way of agreeing with your point about sometimes we need to trust that we can move forward, and that God will meet us in other places too.
and #2
what is on your back in the 2nd picture? it looks like a large plastic something. but i have no idea why you would need something like that on your back
That last line is soooo true.
But I think those places can be good, Jeremy mentioned the stones placed as a monument in the OT, I don't know that God revealed himself again in that place, but I think places can be helpful to remind us in hard times that God is there, it is making sure the love of those places does not overwhelm our love of God and our trust in him, and that is kinda hard sometimes. But even after saying that,
I still kinda wanna move to Greensboro...
We'll see what God does :)
Oh, Em. I miss it so much, too. It's funny how camp was such a place of constant working/playing, but also such a place of rest. I don't think I have slept as well as I slept at camp since then.
I also miss it because I know God changed my heart so much there. I really met Him there. Just being at camp the other week made me think back to laying in a bunk bed as a camper and getting things right, and figuring things out.
It's weird how much we've grown up, but camp is still SUCH a part of us.
i miss it too. i have allllways thought i would be a camp counselor forever if i could. too bad that is not a college major or an actual career choice. and i, too, hate that i don't get to see any kids this summer. argh.
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