There’s nothing I enjoy more than roughing it in this world of luxury hotels, I thought, but did I have a choice this time? No, no I did not. Plus, Mom was so enthusiastic for us to hang out together at the campsite and walk its trails while the boys were hunting in areas nearby where we were camping, so I tried to put on a good show for her about it, butttt inside I was terrified.
It was the fall of my junior year. Yes, nearly two years later I am finally getting around to writing about this. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten! You don’t forget being in your tent at night, these tinny little fluorescent lights illuminating all the bugs flying around, and I reach out to grab something and happen to literally crush a moth. With blood smeared all over my fingers and a heart attack beginning, I declare to Mom that we need to head up to the rest rooms, which were a solid but nevertheless straight distance away, and she just tosses a wet wipe at me and says I’ll be fine. I HAD TO SLEEP LIKE THAT. And then there was the time we were enjoying a nice grilled hot dog meal at the picnic table beside our tent, and a gust of wind blew through. It also blew my paper plate and food right into my crotch, and the Ketchup made sure it stuck there. Oh yes, I remember all the gory details well.
What surprised me, though, while I was so grateful to be home and finally shower after the long weekend and see all the polka dots aka MOSQUITO BITES covering my body, is how much I actually enjoyed my time camping. I don’t necessarily want to do it again—it was one of those nice bucket list experiences to cross off once and for all—but I did have fun while we were camping, when I wasn’t covered in blood or my food, of course.
Well, we took Willy, which was a blast. We were camping at Kilen Woods in southern Minnesota; it’s by areas where my dad used to go hunting when he was younger, so the boys and their hunting dog had fun hunting around there. Willy nearly broke his paw on the way home, we found out, because he jumped off a dam or something like that where it was too shallow. He’s such a trooper, though; he hobbled to the door the next day to greet us with three feet and his jumbo paw just hanging there; it was a pitiful sight. We also had good food over the course of our adventure, from Sparky’s gas station snacks to blizzards at Dairy Queen in the town Dad grew up in. We even stopped through Estherville and saw my grandparents on the way up. I did lots of walking and spending time with Mom and family, saw a lot of beautiful sights, but do you really know where the magic was, the trigger of all the joy?
I just chose to live, surrendered to Him. I chose not to think about or entertain anything else, like the eons of rabbit-hole trails I followed just days before we’d left. It may not have been a night out on the town with a group of girls, but what I slowly but surely began accepting back then and have realized now is that what you’re doing in life doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to your happiness. What matters is where you’re at in your relationship with God and whether you’re keeping your thoughts on Him and the beauty of the moments He’s given you. I feel like now the world is beginning to realize that things don’t make you happy and that saying happiness is all about your thoughts is becoming an overdone cliche, but old habits die hard, and we really need to put the sentiment into action. That’s what I did, by the grace of God, that weekend.
I decided to embrace the unknown of where God was taking me instead of living life through my own imagination and what I thought I really needed at that time, which was lots of people to go out with in the city, and that I’ve often realized is overrated, anyway. I decided to let life unfold as He willed for it to rather than get high-strung about what was going to happen. And more than anything, I knew I wanted to remain in Him, which meant not getting brought down in anxiety and despair about things I felt like I was lacking or things I wanted elsewhere. I conditioned my mind to remember every single special thing He’d done, in my life and out of who He is, and focus on that. Focus on the here and now. That’s all that life is! It’s true that if you can’t do that, then what are you doing? You are always going to be stressing, imagining, and wishing life away; I’ve done it far too many times, and every now and then at that season of my life, I’d finally hit my breaking point and order myself to stop it and come back down to earth. To now. What is actually life. That’s what I’m made for. Made to live for Him. Because of that, He changed everything for me in how I viewed these moments, and I do remember all of them fondly.
Even the dumb moth and wearing my food.
Nothing stays the same forever. People say that, and at the time I’d kinda roll my eyes and will it to be true, but I realize now that it is. Seeing my dad’s old town, having that time with my family, at that specific moment in time with us as we were then…that’s all going to become memories that stay with me and remind me of His goodness. Remind me of the beauty in surrendering what isn’t my life, and since my life does belong to Him, that means giving Him all of that. All I can do is breathe one moment to the next. That’s what He gives me. And there’s so much freedom, joy, and beauty in really learning what a gift that is and staying in it rather than fighting it.
Who knew camping could reveal so much to me about life? Well, with Him, every moment means something.
