When my children were young, summertime meant two things ... no school and church camp. I'm not sure which they enjoyed more, sleeping in and not having to do homework or spending a week at the rustic camp in Missouri with their friends from church. The first time I went with some other parents to drive the kids to camp, I was amazed at just how rustic it was ... no television, no air conditioning, community showers. I know many of you are thinking ... so? That's what church camp is supposed to be ... rustic and far removed from the comforts of home so that the kids can focus on getting closer to God and closer to one another. Here's the thing, though ... I grew up going to Ridgecrest Conference Center for church camp. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, it was far from rustic with hotel-like dorms, a massive auditorium for the worship services and a cafeteria that resembled a 5-star restaurant.
I've got some great memories of the summertime weeks I spent at Ridgecrest, including meeting Billy Graham and his wife Ruth at a little doughnut shop one morning when several of us snuck off the Ridgecrest campus and went into town. But when my children reminisce about church camp, they have memories of smoky campfires and messy food fights and nighttime cow tipping and tear-filled confessions and quiet walks with God in the woods. I remember how shocked I was the first time I saw the camp my kids were attending and thought I was depriving them somehow ... but all these years later, I know that my children were richly blessed by their church camp experience and I wouldn't have changed one thing about their time there. For all the differences between my church camp experience and that of my children, there was one ritual that was the same. Each night at a predetermined time, a counselor would shout, "Lights out!" signifying that it was time to quiet down and go to sleep. And I'm sure that my children did what I did when those words were spoken ... got quiet until the counselor was asleep and then stayed up all night talking to friends. Or in my case, snuck out and got into trouble of some sort.
Now that summer is nearing its end and fall is right around the corner (it was a chilly 59 degrees when I hopped on my bike at 5:15 this morning), the days are getting shorter ... it stays dark later in the mornings and it gets dark later in the evening. And for the first time since I've been biking again, I rode my entire route in the dark this morning with the sky only beginning to get a little lighter when I pulled into my garage. I was extra deep in thought this morning, and it seemed appropriate that I was surrounded by the lingering darkness of the cool night sky as I pedaled. Thoughts tumbled through my mind ... thoughts about a multitude of things ... work, my children, little C.J., an email my doctor sent me on Sunday, church, the diabetes walk, my dogs, traveling to Tennessee. But one thought that came crashing into my mind about halfway through my ride has been stuck in my brain all day ... the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer ... the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer ... the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer ... I wonder when God is going to shout, "Lights out!"
"And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever." Revelation 22:5
"'Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.' Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city." Revelation 22:12-14
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