It is a question that has been asked and will continue to be asked. For so long I truly have not been able to answer it. As sessions ended, friends and family genuinely wanted to know how camp had been so far. I had no language to wrap around the days. I think it was the Lord’s way of making me just be there, to wait, to allow myself to let camp be something that was just Him and me. There were no words and there didn’t need to be. There was a lack of words but there was no shortage of intimacy with Jesus.
I don’t know if I will ever be ever to fully articulate the moments that transpired over the past 10 weeks but it would be a shame to not let you in on a secret little wardrobe that resides in Rome, Georgia, where we did, in fact, encounter the Great Lion and hearts leaped as He breathed on them. It was summer, but it felt more like spring after a long harsh winter.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “to be great is to be misunderstood.” That is how the transition back home from camp feels. People don’t get it. It only makes sense to the ones who took the journey with you, or who have taken a similar one. The fear of being misunderstood can often silence us. It can push back down the words that are on the tip of our tongue. It can make you switch the mic pack to off, even when you have already done a sound check.
Jesus was misunderstood. Time after time those around Him would ask, “what do you mean by this?” I think He knew our finite minds could not comprehend His heavenly language, so He spoke in parables. He spoke as simply as He could. He was not long-winded. His thoughts were far beyond us, but He is complicated and clarity wrapped up in the same being. He brings the understanding when the dots aren’t being connected. He told His stories anyway, knowing full well that some might not get it. He told them anyway because there was always the potential for someone to get it. He risked being misunderstood, even it was just for the one.
Shall we not do the same?
I journaled two pages of fears I had going into the summer in April, only to find them all deflated in power as the summer unfolded. So, here at the end of it all, I say that fear was not what wrote the story. I thought that was how it was going to go. Oh, how wrong I was.
There were fears.
There were failures.
There were frustrations.
There were false beliefs.
There were frazzled moments.
However, those are not the words that are bolded in print, these are…
There were feelings, some I have not let myself experience in a long time.
There were friends.
There were those same friends becoming family.
There was freedom.
There was pure child-like fun.
There was purpose found.
Above all though, there was a Father who took me by the hand and continuously whispered in my ear, “I’ve got you.”
So, what did I do this summer?
I took a journey with a good shepherd. He led me, calmed with, loved me, stayed with me, and gave to me. Yes, the answer could be unpacked but I am coming to find that there is something special about taking the posture of Mary and storing up things in your heart and just pondering over them.
The time might come where He asks me to start telling the stories of some of the things that happened on that holy ground, for now, He is prompting me to just let you know that He truly is a God who wants to walk with you. I wonder how different this world would look if we resisted to post and just pondered. I believe that our foundation of faith would be a little stronger, a little firmer. Mary had to watch her son be crucified on the cross. A part of me thinks that her pondering prepared her for the obstacles that would want to make her faith diminish.
I had to fight for this, harder than I have had to fight for anything in a long time. I had moments where I was lonely, moments when I just didn’t want to do it, moments where forfeiting seemed like the best option. Here at the end at it all, there are no tangible awards, there is no goal that can be marked off as achieved, but yet I find myself proud. Not just of myself, but of my entire team. It is the upside-down thinking of the Kingdom of God that runs so contradictory to the world.
There comes a time when the battle you have been fighting comes to the closing scene and we have arrived at the scene. The taste of victory is the prize. WinShape staff, you have won more than anything this world could tangibly give you. You packed your car, turned in your name tag for the last time, but that name tag is not even needed. All of us are walking back into our lives with the same name.
Overcomer.
Sleepless nights. Spiritual warfare. Challenging campers. Strained vocal chords. Confusion. Chaos. Etc. Name whatever it is and then remind yourself you overcame it.
But really, He overcame it all way before now.
I write this with a new kind of hurt this morning. The kind of hurt that comes from genuinely missing people. I hope you experience something that changes you so much that it hurts to leave. I hope that you love deeply and you let yourself be loved so deeply that your heart aches for your people. A new kind of hurt, a hurt that says – this mattered.
Two days before camp ended I wrote this in my journal and read it to the girls + staffers the last morning. A lot of you have asked for it but I also know that as summer comes to an end more than just us who worked camped are transitioning back into something. This is for you, the ones who are leaving something, going back to something. For the ones who are turning the page.
“but I do as the father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the father. Rise let us go from here.” John 14:31
Rise, let us go from here.
Let us go back to our schools. Let us go back to the conversations we have been avoiding. Let us go back to our families, even those of us who families are broken. Let us go back to the struggles that we have acted like were none existent during our time at camp.
Let us go back to our sports team where no one else follows Jesus. Let us go back and break away from the friends we know are toxic for us. Let us go back to the floors of our bedroom where we can get our knees for the people around us.
Let us go back to the mission field the Lord has placed beneath our feet. Let us go back and get the help we might need. Let us go back and walk the path Jesus has for us instead of the man-made one we have carved.
Let us go back to it. Let us go back to all of it.
Rise, let us go from here.
Here is safe. Here is where friends have become family. Here is where the wonder in our eyes came back to life. Here is where some of us felt the breath in our lungs for the first time. Here is where we felt seen and heard. Here is where we felt free.
It is hard to leave here but rejoice dear one. Jesus is HERE but He is where you are going too.
Some people will never experience a place that feels so hard to leave. So those tears in your eyes that are soon to come as you bid farewell to here; they are just a reminder of what was here – an encounter, a life change. Courage, little girl, because you can be sad and courageous at the same time.
But we must do as the Father commanded, so that the world may know that we love the Father.
Rise, let us go from here.
