Strolling

This post is dreadfully late. I'm so sorry! Better late than never, right?

About three weeks ago I returned from church camp, which you know is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Some years I see, feel, and hear clearly the lessons God is teaching me; some years it takes a while for it to sink in. This year it took some time, but this week I finally began understand my Jesus Walk Lesson.

            For the last five years our camp has done a night-time walk with a spiritual focus. We call it the Jesus Walk. For the first two years it took place on a bike path circling a lake (the same path we use for the “PDA Hike”), the third year was on a new path,  and the last two years we’ve kept the Jesus Walk confined to our campground utilizing a part of camp and a path we don’t regularly use during the week.

            This year’s Jesus Walk went well.  Jesus and I had a nice moment and a long chat, and we ended the night with some incredible worship. But I didn’t feel like I had learned my Big Lesson. (See my blog post “Change of Plans” for more information.) That came on Friday of camp, but I didn’t figure it out til last week. Let me rewind.

            Each year we take a “Stroll Around the Lake” in the state park, but not on our camp site. It is unofficially nicknamed the “PDA Hike” because camp couples tend to walk together and the adults pretend to look the other way if they hold hands. It’s really nothing, just a relaxed evening walk. This year we had storms on Wednesday and were treated to some brilliant lightning displays right before the stroll.  So we canceled it, loaded up the busses, and headed back to camp. When the rain never came, we took an optional Stroll within camp (the same path as this year’s Jesus Walk). I walked with different groups of teens, and one sweet girl asked if I was ok, because she knows I sometimes struggle with loneliness on this particular walk. I told her I was ok, and I was. But ten minutes later I was walking along, with just my flashlight for company, and the familiar pangs began. I tried to distract myself, and found a group to walk and talk with, and was fine.

            Now fast forward to Friday night. As some of the oldest campers, the girls in my cabin stayed up late helping pack up camp and were hanging out, supervised, up where we’d done the Jesus Walk and the Stroll.  I went to go find them and check on them, armed with my flashlight. After hanging out with them all for a while, I headed back to the cabin to check my sugar. So once again, I was walking alone late at night down that path in the camp, but this time without my flashlight, which I  had handed to one of the teens never to see it again. (Or so I thought. They returned it later.) You would think I’d be bummed out or at least creeped out, but this time I was fine, strangely. I knew about where I was, how long it would take me to get to the cabin, who was behind me, and what lay before me. So I was good. And I didn’t think another thing of it. Til last week.

            Last week I was jamming out in my car to “Never Once.” The chorus goes, “Never once did we ever walk along/never once did you leave us on our own/ you are faithful, God you are faithful….. Every step we are breathing in your grace/ ever more we’ll be breathing out your praise…”  And it hit me. Both times at camp, I was surrounded. By the campers and staff behind me, and the God who walked with me and in front of me. On Friday I was aware of it, while on Wednesday I was too caught up by my physical alone-ness to notice that I’m never alone. On Wednesday I muddled through trail, but on Friday I walked confidently, hearing my surroundings and with the Light inside me instead of in my hand (flashlight).

            That happens a lot to me in life, too. My hope for the new school is that I walk as I did on Friday, confident that I’m not alone, and sure that I’ll reach my destination,  even though it’s dark and hard to see. Basically, that I’ll trust the One who walks with me to get me safely through the darkness.