Driving for All Eternity

There's something weird about driving long distances. Spending hours in the car, in the same seat. Something strange starts to happen to you.

It's subtle at first. You work into it starting with that early morning alarm, the quick mental pep talk that tells you that the exciting things you have going today ate worth getting up hours before the sun.

Then you make it to the next town over and marvel at how that jaunt seemed like the blink of an eye. Then, if you ate fortunate enough not to be driving you have the luxury of getting to re enter a sleep like state, although arguably, you never left one, even as you packed up. By the time you make that first stop for gas and coffee, you are all hyped at how fast the trip is going.

This next leg is critical to the shift from normal to strange. In this next part of the trip you and your car mates fall into the "rhythm"  of the trip. By natural course you discover who sits closest to the best snacks, and who is most willing to divvy them out. You develop a balance for those who sleep, want to listen to music, want to listen to books on tape.

And then you look at the clock and realize you've been in this pattern for twelve hours. You try to think back to the morning and realize any life outside of this van has become hazy. You sit and say to yourself, don't be dramatic, you lived a normal life yesterday, you....well what did you do? All you can see is the passing of landscape. All you hear are the ramblings of the deep throated radio story teller. Surely you ran those errands last week....because there's no way you had any sort of normalcy as short a time as 24 hours ago.

You sit and try to imagine eating something other than the snack food so carefully packed and more messily strewn between the front bucket seats. Is there every anything other than pretzels to satisfy cravings? And when was the last time you used a plate? Silverware?

The stale air of the vehicle, that no matter what you tell the air conditioning to do, always carries with it a faint trail of stagnancy. That ever so slight headache, the thirst that is always a little less than quenched, because who knows when you'll stop next. The feeling that any moment an extended look down ward, or a bump in the road and that morning car sickness will return with a vengeance. All these things persist with such dependence that they become your strongest enemy in perpetuating the lie that this back seat is the only life you've really known and everything else is merely an Inception-esque dream.

You try to remind yourself of where you are going. Of the people or places that inspired you to undergo such a trek in the first place, but at this point the tired pulse that makes your eye balls feel like they are twice the size they should be only lets you see the part of the trip when you have to say goodbye and do this trip all over again. But that's okay because at this point if someone told you that you had driven this far for one meal, it would seem worth it because it would be something different than this.
This speckled gray mini van upholstery.

These ever present brake lights that seem to be on an extreme counter offensive mission to delay these hours even more.

The final stage is the one that saves you from swearing off these trips ever again. Its the moment, when at long last, you pull into the parking lot. You climb over the previously organized piles that have now become Everest like mountains and your feet hit terra firma. Suddenly blood makes it to your feet for what feels like the first time. You realize that your back had retained the ability to fully extend, and that the air does move. Then you look towards the faces approaching. The ones you've driven eternity to visit.

You sit together and eat real food on real dishes. You laugh. You look at your travel mates and suddenly only remember the laughter. You remember fondly all the stops, the brake lights, the new routes, because it was "all part of the experience". You marvel with each other that the drive "really wasn't all that bad". You laugh when you calculate that you've been in the car for fifteen hours, as if you can't imagine a better way to spend a day. Your memory returns, and the gift of being able to recall yesterday provides stories that take far later into the night than any one planned because you're, "really not that tired".

You spend your trip shoving away the thought that the warm fuzzy feeling about your road trip is a hoax and through yourself into the people around you. Because that is what is really true. The thoughts that fight each other as you drive....that make you doubt your ability to make good choices...those are lies, because the truth you know deep down is that it would be worth it. To drive 30 hours for one day with these people. To be together. To celebrate the lives we've been given.

Thank you so much for reading this blog, posted from my phone, written on the car in the 15th hour. And special congratulations to my sister Lydia, who's graduation from her Master's program we are gathering to celebrate. If you wanna know more about our road trip, find us on twitter @graymeetsworld.

(please ignore any spelling our formatting errors, like I said, this was sent from my phone).

Hope in Exile

This past weekend I spent about 48 hours in Cleveland GA with the directors and fellow summer staff leaders prepping for the coming months at Strong Rock Camp. 

The man himself, in parent 
approved swag.

There will be a coming post about my heart going into this summer, but since it has been a long time since I have written on this blog, I always feel I need to work back into it slowly. So instead this post features my second ever guest writer (read the first here - she was five).

This piece was not written for a blog. It was written by an awesome member of the summer staff leadership team from last summer, Taylor Wade.

What is cool about Taylor and camp is how clearly God placed him there, because Tay will tell you, he didn't really ever plan on working at Strong Rock.

 In 2011, he had applied to camp but backed out because he wasn't sure how his training schedule for the National Guard would mesh with camp. But when during staff week we had one of our male staff drop out unexpectedly we called up and he came, halfway into training. He spent the first half of the summer in the kitchen and when our numbers required the opening of another boy's cabin he spent the rest of the summer as a counselor. 

A little more realistic.

He thought that that was it for he and camp, but last year when we found ourself lacking a Boy's Head Counselor, he stepped in and filled the roll. He didn't have the most experience, but what he did have was Christ, and the person that God has made him. 

Taylor will tell you modestly how the summer went. He will give credit to other people and say that they are the reason that he found success. What he won't tell you is how blown away we all were by his ability to lead and encourage. He won't tell you how many times he kept me from going crazy. He won't tell you how he made every staffer feel wanted and loved. He won't tell you how his humor lightened the weary days, or how his enthusiasm for Christ encouraged others to pursue Him further. 

This letter is one he sent out halfway through the summer. It's fun because when he passed it out to the staff, I don't think I took much time to really read it, but since it came home from camp with me, it has popped up, every few months in random places like an old purse, or a forgotten stack on my desk, and it finds a way to encourage my socks off every time. I asked him if I could post it here, and he told me that the way he saw it, he gave it to us so we could do whatever we well pleased with it. 

I am posting it now as we go into the coming summer, because truth is timeless. I post it for my fellow staff and I post it for those who are not in camp. Because every one will at some point feel forsaken. Everyone at some point will be annoyed by someone, somewhere, and in that moment, this message becomes applicable. 

Strong Rock Staff,

After Rookie’s testimony on Sunday morning, I started thinking about one of the verses he shared. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you future and a hope.” This verse is quoted so much so that, for me at least, it has lost it’s power and meaning. It had become one of those cliché bible verses from Awana they made you memorize. After hearing the verse again on Sunday, something about it had just struck me. I went to read the verse in context of the overall story of Israel and their captivity. After a certain point, I decided to write this and share what all the Holy Spirit was speaking to me.

Jeremiah 29:4-9 says, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them’ plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name’ I did not send them, declares the Lord.” 

This section seems unimportant and kind of odds at first. But earlier in Jeremiah, the prophet intentionally refrains from marriage and bearing children. This action portrays Israel’s potential future. Obviously, whenever a nation ceases to marry and bear children, they will become extinct. The above section tells of future captivity, but provides hope that God will not allow His people to become extinct even though this trying time (70 years, in their case). Even amidst the turmoil and anguish, there is hope. 

Jeremiah goes on to speak in verses 10-14, saying “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”  

God lets His people know that despite their time of captivity, there will be an end to it. The trials will come to pass. Even when it seems as though God has forgotten His people, He still has plans for them. And they are plans to give us all a future and a hope of what is to come. Furthermore, the God of the universe is willing to listen to His people, His creation . When we genuinely seek God - to hear what He wants tot tell us, to seek His council and comfort, and to rebuild that relationship we’ve partially destroyed through sin- our God willing listens. Finally, God says he will “bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” This is more than a geographical relocation to a homeland. This includes a restoration of life in every possible way. 

I understand that some of these kids can grate on our nerves. I understand that some of these classes we teach aren’t our favorites. And I understand that some we won’t always have the best attitude for whatever reason. But think about how much God has blessed us just by being here. We have phenomenal leadership at every level of camp, even down to some campers. We are surrounded by some of God’s most beautiful creation on a daily basis! We are surrounded by friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, for those days that just don’t seem to go right. We aren’t in any kind of exile here. And yet God still has plans for us to restore us to a life of total and complete fulfillment. 

This verse also applies to the campers. Like I said, I understand that some campers just push out buttons on a daily basis. But we aren’t here to babysit. We have all been brought in here to accomplish a single goal. To impact kids’ lives for the kingdom of God. I guarantee you some of these campers are in their own kind of exile as you read this. And they need to know what God has promised them. Please, remember why you are here. Be encouraging. Have fun. Show these campers how good God has been to us just by allowing us to live another day. And use that day to influence theses campers.

I love all of y’all,

Taylor Wade

I am so grateful that God has seen fit to bless our camp, and my life with a fantastic person such as Taylor Andrew Wade. He is also a writer (clearly) but mostly sticks to publishing humor. Check out his newly created humor blog here!