After, Before, and In-between - Camp Week 9?

It is transition week 1.  The week after camp. 
Withdrawal.
Because the laughter and screams of little kids is like a drug.
Haven't you noticed?
It isn't the coffee that wakes you up.
It is the kids.
We've been zombies the last few weeks until they pull us out of it. 
Back to the reality of life in all of it's color, sound and camp chaos.
There is no other way to state it. 
I am in withdrawal.
I miss camp.
I miss the kids. I miss the staff. I miss the schedules and bandaids and meltdowns and worship songs belted out by a hundred little voices.

Humans aren't great at transitions. 
It's a fact.
These are places of struggle for most of us.
Some of you are headed back to high school.
The new year looms ahead.
You wonder about teachers and classmates, about friendships and dramas that have yet to unfold.
Some of you are headed back to college.
There are bags to pack, forms to fill out, goodbyes to be said - some for the first time, others knowing that there are friends waiting on campus.
Some are headed back to work.
That can be keeping a household going or school-year jobs or both.
Others have uncertain paths ahead.
Nothing is yet clear and waiting is part of the challenge.

I don't like transition, or waiting, or the busy of getting ready. I don't care much for Camp Week 9 at all. And when I find myself struggling here I try to go back to a place of comfort. Believe it or not - that's the Bible stories we started telling our little ones this summer. I say "started tell" because there are limits to what you can communicate with 10 minute attention spans and wiggly arms and legs.  Limits are also imposed by keeping things age appropriate for pre-schoolers. 

But I don't have those limits in Week 9 with those of you reading here. And I find comfort in a God who sees us as we are: broken, uncertain, fatigued, sometimes listless, but cares about us anyways. There is a lot more to some of the stories we tell. There is the before and after - the events that frame some of these well-loved stories, and the in between places where we look at a few sentences written in scripture and flesh that out with our imagination.

For example:
We often tell the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. It's exciting and dramatic. Sometimes we even tell about the rain coming afterwards and Elijah racing Ahab down the mountain afterwards. Elijah was on foot, Ahab was in his chariot. He shouldn't have won, but God was into taking Ahab down a few pegs repeatedly that day. Talk about a story involving "arch-enemies." You can practically see the raindrops sizzling as they came off the king when that "rag-tag prophet" pulled ahead of him on foot. Sometimes we tell that part of the story. When we have time. But not often do we talk about what came next.

The low point after the high.
In one day Elijah had been in the center of God showing his nation that he was truly in control. And that nation responded. They put the prophets of Baal to death. They made a clear statement about who they were going to follow and they did so right in front of a wayward king. It took courage, but they had seen that God was big. Bigger than Ahab and bigger than Jezebel. And Elijah was the lynch pin in that story. The man willing to stand up to Ahab and Jezebel before God worked his miracles. A man who had repeatedly told Ahab what God had in store if he didn't turn things around. A man that Ahab had unsuccessfully hunted throughout the land until this final showdown. Mt. Carmel was a high point in so many ways. The climactic finale on an epic national scale.

And Elijah was spent afterwards. Emotionally the fears crept in. Jezebel sent word that she would strike him down, and after all, she was the one to fear, not Ahab. He was tired both physically and mentally. He ran. He left his servant. He crept under a juniper tree. He asked God for death. He was alone and tired and at the end of his being. (1 Kings 19)

That is a story of after. After the high places. A story of transition. A story of inner struggle. The Bible doesn't tell us about what Elijah was feeling. But we can recognize the signs of distress, despair, discouragement. Today we'd put a label of depression on it. Elijah was struggling with the "after." He wanted to die. That is the "after" in this story.

And in that low place, God came to him. He sent an angel and gave Elijah food and rest. Respite, time away. And then he sent his voice to Elijah. God is in the low places friends. It doesn't erase the struggle. It doesn't magically transport us out from under the juniper tree. Instead he meets us there. And he knows what we need when we are fragile. (Never underestimate the power of a good nap and comfort food.) 

After God talks to Elijah in a still small voice we see the story continuing. God gives Elijah a protege in the form of Elisha. At some point a school is started for men interested in prophecy. And beyond that Elijah becomes one of two men in history to be taken to heaven without dying. His story moves onward after Mt. Carmel. After that deep valley. But God met Elijah there.

For me, this story is full of encouragement. Because God doesn't give us heroes who are unreal. They struggled. Incredible, difficult trips to the edge of themselves. Low places. And God cared about them there. It gives me the hope that he is in my low places too. It gives me the hope that experiencing those low places is not dishonorable. It is normal. And we have a God who understands that. 

It means that I am giving myself some space in the coming week to retreat. To listen for the still voice of God. To sleep and eat. To struggle. And eventually to find my path again with God's help.

Another example of the before's and afters that get glossed over: we talked about Joshua leading the nation of Israel over the Jordan river and around the walls of Jericho. Jericho that mighty walled city. It is a high point too in our stories. But we almost never tell the before to that story. Oh we'll talk about Joshua meeting the angel - the commander of the armies of the Lord. But not about what happened directly before that.

In chapter 3 Joshua has the priests cross into the Jordan River and God dries it up for the entire nation to cross during flood season. In Joshua 4, he instructs the men to make a monument to remember the miracle by taking large stones from the riverbed and setting them up on shore. And in chapter 5 God tells Joshua to circumcise the men. OK there is a reason that we don't tell this story to kids. You see circumcision was a Jewish practice that fell out of practice during the wilderness years. And now God commands that his nation stop and follow this again. 

It doesn't seem too weird until you think about the context. Joshua was not leading a pleasant country walk. He was coming into a land to conquer it. He was a military man. He understood tactics and strategies. He understood what crossing the river meant. The river was as formidable of a defense as the walls of Jericho in flood season. Broaching it was a first step towards the fighting to come. It was landing on Normandy Beach. And just after they cross, God tells his people to take every soldier, every grown male and have them undergo a surgery that will incapacitate them for several days.

The Bible is silent on some things. It doesn't tell us what Joshua thought. It doesn't tell of the long talks he had with his wife in their tent. About why God would ask this or how in the world to present this new order to his leaders in a way that would gather compliance. It doesn't talk about fears he must have had in replacing Moses, a very different and powerful leader. Or whether he wondered each time if this was the place where the people would say "enough of this craziness!" If they would think that Joshua, their military leader was making such an obvious military mistake, leaving them all exposed and vulnerable when he could have asked this on the other side of the river. That is all left to my imagination. But Joshua was human. I imagine he struggled some. I imagine the people struggled some.

But he went forward and the nation went with him. They did as God asked and then in the middle of a potential battlefield they stopped and celebrated Passover. And I wonder.
I wonder if this was one more step in a series of steps where God increased the faith of his people. It started out small, step into the River. Then this surgery and celebration, then the walking around Jericho. None of it made sense. 

And I wonder, if the sheer nonsensicalness of it did wonders. I'd like to think that the Old Testament God who commanded war and conquering, used this. Many of the people of Jericho fled. God sent wasps ahead of the Israelites and he sent this formidable view of an Army whose God dried up the Jordan, an Army so completely sure of themselves that they could take the time to party in a war zone. A people so committed to doing what their God said and a God so powerful that fear washed over the oncoming cities. I'd like to think that God cared about the inhabitants of the land enough to scare them away, just as he cared enough about the Egyptians to show them his power in the plagues. 

But Joshua didn't have that perspective. He couldn't have seen what was coming. The miracles to come, the warpath so different than what he could have imagined. Because God works differently than we do. He was still in the "before" place. Before Jericho. Before a long life leading the nation as they settled this land that God led them to take over.

When I land in a place where I can't see the path ahead, or when what God wants me to do doesn't seem to make sense. I come back to the story of Joshua after the Jordan and before Jericho. I look at the trust. I look at the way God built that trust. And I can hope. I can hope that my own trust will grow. Uncertain times are not new. It is a part of the human life. 

In the end, the "afters" can turn into the "before's," and make up a part of the in-betweens that become our lives. But I know it can be hard to see that. We don't get that perspective in our own lives. But God gives us the glimpse in the lives of others, so that we can see. He is there all the time.

When things are upside down and inside out, he is there.
When we think we walk a path alone, he is there.
When we are at the end of ourselves and lower than we thought possible, he is there.
Before the battles, he is there.
In the times of recovery, he is there.
In the times of celebration, he is there.
When things don't make sense, he is there.
In the big epic works of a nation, he is there.
In the little things that a single one of us struggle with, he is there.

My friends, In Week 9, he is there.
All of my wishes and prayers that each one of you can experience his voice and direction and comfort in this time.

Camp Week 6 - Hard Times

Week 6 was hard, 

But then if I was honest, this summer has been hard, 

at least for me.

I find it difficult to be open about certain struggles. I guard certain areas of my life behind very thick walls. 

Perhaps it's pride, a desire to look like I've got it all together, or a deep rooted sense of privacy, and sometimes even a place of not being able to talk because that silence safeguards others - most likely a motley combination of all with sundry other complexities stirred in. 

Because life gets incredibly complex. There are times to be silent. Times to grieve. Times of deep-rooted insecurities. Times where you don't know which way is up. Times where you battle fear or bitterness until you are too tired of pulling it out like the weeds in a flower bed and it starts to plant roots in your soul.

There is more to life than camp. 42 more weeks a year to navigate through. Families and circumstances that are bigger than the time and energy we give this job, this ministry. When you get hit in those areas hard, it becomes easy to get distracted, easier to get discouraged by the small things like another trip to the bench for behavior issues, or the snags that seem to never end. Toilets that overflow much more often than we want. Lunch boxes that always get lost. Volunteers that make the room harder instead of easier. The constant neediness of very young children that starts to wear you down.

Tired sets in, sickness seems to attack repeatedly. Family connections fray and friendships falter, finances fail and the bigger arena of life overlaps camp. Things happen that make the lost lunch boxes and overflowing toilets look insignificant in comparison. And while that perspective bodes well for keeping calm about those incidents, it also presses down with enough weight that you wonder if one of those little things will be the key to unleashing the lake of duress that you are damming up inside.

The distractions inside and outside of camp take you away from noticing the child climbing the radiator and dangling from the window sill. Lack of sleep makes finding the solution for the child experiencing a heavy duty melt-down fade into, "can we just cry it out - because I'm tired and I want to sit here" rather than thinking about directions that might work, options that have potential, or other tools from the bag of tricks.

And operating in that state of distraction and fatigue, missing things, giving up on others, failing to get done what needed to be achieved, leads to questioning whether I really should be here. That I am not adequate for the needs of the job.

And here is the truth of the matter.

I am not adequate.

I cannot always figure out which behaviors are caused by diagnosed Aspergers and which are simple misbehavior that needs to stop.

I cannot give comfort to a child who has lost a grandparent and the Christmas tree and lights in Christmas in July are triggering a deep sadness where that pivotal person stood in their life.

I cannot find consistency and at the same time reach out to those who are so utterly unique that camp needs to flex more and more to meet them where they are at. The rules change. And sometimes the rules need to change - and other times we need to change to fit the rules. But knowing which is which is beyond my limited wisdom.

I cannot fix the fact that we work with others who think differently and have different priorities, even though I did a lot of soul searching on that last week. Knowing what I need to do: keep extending grace, keep loving, keep holding onto patience. Just because I can identify what I need to do, just because I can state it, does not mean that I am capable of following through on it.

I am not enough.

This week I got there.

And rather than reveling in the fact that it took me so long to break. I find myself starting to become aware that the breaking should have happened so much sooner.

The encouragement to “keep on keeping on” and “struggle forward”  sometimes speaks to a theory that the longer you make it before hitting bottom, the stronger you are. That if you can keep from asking for help, that is a good thing.  And then, all of a sudden, you get in places where you know no other human can fix it, even if you had asked. You hit bottom and it doesn't matter how long the fall was because you're still at the bottom. All that is left is the temptation to think that it is just a matter of finding some hidden vein within yourself to tap into and persevere. Because there seems nothing left to turn to.

Sometimes we think that vein is our own spirituality, our own faith. Sometimes our strength of character, or our ability to forgive or love or stubbornly press forward. No matter what we think that vein is, our gifts or possessions or personhood – it will run dry, because buying into the idea that we can do it if we just try hard enough smells as bad as the C-quad bathroom on Friday.

It’s just not true.

I am undone.

There is no vein to tap into.

Nothing within myself can get me out of the morass of complexity and confusion I’ve fallen into.

There is no way out if I leave God out the equation.

This week I started realizing that. I started praying for help. Real prayers that echoed some of David’s psalms. The ones simply stated that said. “God, I can’t do this anymore. Please help.”

I would like to say that he came in like the flashing lights and voices to Paul on the road to Damascus and upended everything going wrong in my life.

He didn’t.

But he quietly eased a few of the weights pressing down. And it was enough to help me come back to the place that I need to be. The place of realizing that he is still in control, even when I feel out of control. The place of realizing I’ve got to ask him for help more often. The real asking, not any fake social prayers that sound like rehearsed speeches, but the in-your-closet-tears-and-snot-coming-down-your-face-hiccupping-cries-for-help type of prayers that reach down into the core of who you are, and what you know yourself utterly incapable of accomplishing.

The place where you don’t just expect that God will do great things, but the place where you are desperate for it. Because with the desperation comes glimpses of how impotent we are and how cosmically capable he is.

When that gets put into place again, it gets easier to see the balances in what is happening, both at camp and in the larger world outside of it.

And yeah, I am going to go back to some of what I’ve seen recently and finish this post by writing about the blessings. Because when you get locked into struggle, the focus shifts and the first things to fall out of your field of vision are those blessings. The sweet simple things that you don’t have any more control of than you do over the outcomes of the big weighty things. The small comforts that speak to God's unimaginable ability to know exactly what we need.

A dear friend who took a random Mysie comment (yes weird things fly in and out of my head at a pretty constant patter), and turned it into a time of laughter and bonding, breaking generation lines down, and reminding me that laughing is good medicine, but laughing with friends is therapy far beyond most. (Yes, for those of you still not sure, I am talking about Rebecca Black’s “Friday” song turning up in the worship queue.)

A little one sad and shy and tired who came and sat with me in the shade after morning drop-off. I didn’t think it was such a big deal until every time later that day coming down the hall or catching my eye in large group, she brightened and gave a shy wave and a dazzlingly sweet smile. There is something soothing in knowing that just sitting together can make a difference. Just spending time with one of our amazing little people counts.

Another friend who took the time to give me feedback on my own children that made my heart soar. A camp that hires an eclectic range of staff. (Something I greatly appreciate, since I don't fit most molds.) Young people who I get to work with daily who are gifted and growing and whom I count as friends. 

Fellow moms who care and spent time with me when I was too tired to remember my name. The messiness of face paint sponges and stencils. A creative outlet that I can escape into without needing to think. My daughters, rallying to help out where they could.

Sitting during the parent show and having a little one that I've prayed for this summer, lean over and whisper "Star Wars" with an impish smile. 60 seconds later the whisper was "R2-D2." And a string of pauses followed by "C-3P0," "Jawa," "Ewok," etc. until our campers were called up to present. It touched  my heart, this quirky little girl less than 1/10th of my age. And a shared connection that might not mean much outside of the context became something magical in those whispered words.

I can't explain these things. I can't explain how the small things like this seemed to lighten my spirits. It is incomprehensible that these simple little things helped add balance to the weights I've been trying to carry. Until you realize that God has his finger on the scale. 

A good friend spoke into my life recently as I broke down about my overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. She told me "God put you here. You have to trust him, that he has a reason for this. That he has a purpose."

Trust, it's such a tiny word and such a huge act. I am quick to embrace that the Christian life is a struggle - because I am there. It's easy to accept that I am broken and flawed.  But trusting holds a picture of rest for me - a quiet stillness that somehow blocks out the struggles of the day and can find contentment and peace in their place. It is impossibly difficult getting to that place of rest. A place where I can lay aside my fear, worry, and inadequacy and put it in God's hands.

Maybe, I can accept that I cannot reach that on my own.

But I can ask God to help me get there. . . .

Mark 9

21Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. 22“It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”23“ ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Laura Story: Blessings 

Josh Wilson: Fall Apart