I'm home!!

Really? Is it true? Are you sure?

Yes! It's true! I'm home! Feels like it's been forever and just yesterday all at the same time.

After not blogging for over two weeks, I could sit here and write for the next twelve hours at least. But I need to go to sleep at some point. I still haven't fully recovered. So this will be a brief update.

Camp was great! Both weeks were fantastic! I may elaborate on some details later. But for right now, that's all I'll say. That and the fact that I am now more convinced than ever that I have the greatest friends and family on the planet, and the body of Christ is the greatest thing before and since sliced bread.

I'm all smiles right now, but I expect to crash in the near future. I always do. And it's never pretty. I'll let you know when it happens. Assuming that it happens.

As usual, while I was gone, lots of things happened at home. I'm actually surprised that more things didn't change. My mom usually has the whole house rearranged whenever I get back from a trip of any notable length. The biggest thing that I wasn't expecting was my nice, clean room. I meant to clean it before I left, but for one reason or another, I didn't. So I was expecting to come home to the same mess, but my mama kindly cleaned everything for me. And she barely rearranged anything in here, so I am feeling quite grateful at the moment. The one thing in here that is different that I'm not quite so sure about is the fact that I now have a TV. While I was at camp I talked about what little use I have for the television, and now I get home and there are 100 channels streaming into my bedroom. I'm still developing my feelings on that subject. The biggest thing I'm hoping is that I don't get lazy and start watching it too much. But considering how much I really do dislike most of the programming on it, I'm relatively sure it won't be much of an issue.

Well, I should get in the bed. I have a lot of resting to do tonight and a lot of unpacking to do tomorrow. As sad as I was to leave Camp Formosa, I am just as grateful to be home, in my own, air-conditioned bedroom, in my own, non-plastic bed. Completely free of flies, dirt daubers, mosquitoes, beetles, and all other creatures of the sort. At least, I hope....

Packing observations.

My bed has been covered in clothes for the past two days. (And yes, I've been sleeping, however little it may be. I've been uncovering it to go to bed, and then recovering it as soon as I get up the next morning.) In analyzing this fact, I've noticed a few things.

1.) I've been going to this camp for a really long time. And no, I didn't just realize that today. I know that I've been going there a long time, but it just hit me exactly how long I've been going. The first time I set foot there was over 20 years ago. Wow. What triggered this thought was my t-shirts. I was evaluating all the shirts I've gotten there over the years, and I have one for every day I'm going to be there and then some. Which brings to my next point...

2.) I pack a lot. Clothes, particularly, but I pack a lot in general. Every summer, I move in. I'm only there for two weeks, but you'd think I'm going to be there a lot longer. But there are reasons for that, and not just that I can't bear to live without my stuff. Sometimes, I end up going through three outfits a day, so that explains all the clothes. And the number of pairs shoes I take is insane, but it's because I have this thing about matching. So all of my shoes always match my clothes. More than that, I'm an expert camper. I know the routine, I know what people tend to forget, know what they didn't expect to need, so I bring all kinds of extra stuff "just in case." And it's been very helpful over the years. And all this leads into my last point....

3.) That place really is like home. I daresay I feel more at home there than I do at my own house, in which I am sitting now, writing this. That happens when a place has been a part of your life for two decades. Especially for someone like me, who lived in a new place every time she turned around, and so that camp and my grandma's house have been really the only two constant places in my life. So even more than me knowing what I'll need, that would explain me moving in every year. I feel comfortable enough to plant roots when I get there. Even if they're only temporary.

I can't wait to get there!

My poor, neglected journals.

Sometimes I fear that the Internet has taken too much control of my life.

For example, just now I was thinking about blogging about something, and then I thought, "Hey, I haven't written in my journal in a while." Remember journals. They're those things with paper in them, and you actually have to use some sort of writing utensil and write on the paper with the letters you learned in Kindergarten. No typing. Yeah, those things.

Okay, so, that's exaggerating a little bit. They haven't actually become that foreign to me. I have many journals and I still use them. But not as much as I used to. Now, I think about something and my immediate thought after that thought is, "Hey, I should blog about this," instead of, "Hey, there's a paper and a pen. Go write this down."

But sometimes you don't need to blog about things. Some people, I'm sure, have no trouble with this. I, on the other hand, have to stop myself a lot of the time. I'm a pretty open book, so just about anything is fair game. A lot of people probably don't think that about me, because I'm so silent all of the time. But I'm not silent because I'm unwilling to share, I'm silent because I'm not inclined to talk. Writing is a different story. I AM inclined to write. So that, combined with the fact that I find no shame in a total stranger knowing that as I made banana bread yesterday, I spoke to myself in a Cajun accent, there's no telling what I may end up sharing over the World Wide Web that most people probably didn't want to know.

For that reason, and because the art of writing on paper in your own hand is fading more and more everyday, I really need to write in my various journals more. It'll also give me something to do on nights like tonight when I should be sleeping, but can't go to sleep, and really need to do something that has nothing to do with the computer.

So if that's the case, what am I doing on here now? See! I told you it has too much control of my life!

The next three weeks.

I realized today that my blog has been neglected for over a week. This is unacceptable. My excuse is that I've been spending an unusual amount of time away from my computer. And when I have gotten online every night this week, after I check Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, etc., I've been too exhausted to even think of anything to write.

Also today, in thinking about all the things I have to do this week, I realized that tonight is the only night this week on which I don't have anything planned.

So, considering those two things, I figured that tonight was the best night to get back to blogging, because who knows if I'll be able to the rest of the week and....

Saturday I'm going out of town! For two weeks! Which means I won't be on the Internet for a little while. But I'm going to be too busy to notice. It's church camp season again! One of the highlights of my every year.

And what's not to like? Hard, uncomfortable, plastic beds; Arkansas heat and humidity; concrete dorms lacking air-conditioning; cold showers with little to no water pressure; getting flashed about a dozen times a day; helping little girls find their clothes during the junior week; dealing with teenage drama during the senior week; cleaning mess after mess; going and going and going from the time I get up in the morning to the time I go to bed. Pure bliss. Not really.

No, that's not why I go to camp. Nor why I look forward to it. I look forward to all the great people I get to work with, people whom I have known for years, grew up with, and count among my closest friends; spending time with the kids, who, even considering how they can try your patience, still bring me joy; all the fun I get to have in the name of entertaining the campers; watching campers meet God for the first time; watching staff members, including me, be just as touched as all the campers. That's the good stuff.

This week, along with the other miscellaneous things I have to do, is dedicated to preparing myself for all that goodness (and not-so-goodness). It's only Monday, and I'm already exhausted, which does not bode well for how I will get through the next two weeks. I told my friend Kaitlyn over on Jason Gray's message boards that she would get through her church camp venture this summer on adrenaline and the Holy Spirit. And I'm having to remind myself of that. And remind myself that it's only two weeks and some people do it for two months!

Despite how tired I feel, I'm still inexpressibly excited! I always am. This week can't pass fast enough. Well...maybe it can...I have a lot to do, and I can only do so much at one time....

Joy

Joy that comes from the Lord. Is this what I have? I think so....

I've been thinking lately about my general feelings about life and things....in general. And I generally feel good. I can't say that I'm happy all the time, although I am frequently happy. But my life is crazy, and there are problems and tough situations that I have to deal with like anyone else. And I have a lot of questions and spend a lot of my time feeling confused if I think about them too much, like most people, I'm sure. But even in moments like those when I am far from happiness, I feel this inner contentment, reassurance. Sometimes it's not as noticeable. I have to remind myself to take my eyes off the current situation and realize that's not all there is. And then I think, "Right. What I'm currently dealing with is tough, and no one's expecting me to be bubbly happy, but there is so much more than this." And once I shift my focus, the joy comes in.

As I've heard and as experience has shown me, life has rotations of seasons, much like the physical world. I feel like I'm in a good season of life right now. And so these joyful feelings may be easier to latch onto because of that. But I pray that I can hold onto the joy. And if it's truly the joy of the Lord, then it goes beyond just surface things, so even if I'm experiencing a terrible "winter," that joy is still there to be found. And I suppose that during those times is when that joy is most noticeable, because there's a severe lack of circumstantial happiness to cloud your judgment.

Just my musings, as usual. I'm still searching and learning.

Although the bulb burned out a long time ago, there's still a light at the end of the tunnel.

Generally, I never wish that anybody was like me in the slightest. And that's not just to bag on myself, although there are plenty of things about me that aren't all that great, just like everyone else. It's less about those things, and more about the fact that everyone being different is a good thing. It's a great thing. I don't want to think about a life in which everyone is exactly the same.

But, at least for the moment, I do wish that everyone was like me in one area....

I have often used the words "eternal optimist" to describe myself. I tend to major on the good, the positive, in any given situation, and it's often difficult for me to see the bad, or to even recognize the possibility that something might be bad until someone or something else calls it to my attention. No matter the situation, I always claim there is good, there is hope. Even if I don't see it, I would use all my breath insisting that it's there. Along the same lines, whenever I take spiritual gifts tests, faith is always near the top for me. And I recognize that as I'm living my life. It's usually not hard for me to believe something, specifically something God has said.

I do realize that I have not been hit been by all the terrors of the world, or even just one of the worst, so I can't say for sure that there is nothing that can shake my outlook on life or destroy it altogether. But I do believe that I have seen enough to know that it is a deep rooted trait and to be able to project how I might feel in any given situation. I have the feeling that even if I was in a completely hopeless situation (the debate of whether that is really possible will be left for another time), I would still insist there was something good even though there wasn't.

If only everyone could be like that. Even though the world would still be full pain and horror, and people would still have to fight, it wouldn't seem so bad. Hopelessness and all the tragedies that accompany it would not exist. And I guarantee you more people would be alive. I can't say that's the only reason I'm alive, but I do know it's the only reason I haven't gone legally insane.

Wishful thinking on my part...but the same side of me that I've been talking about likes to think that maybe it's not quite so unattainable....

The Way of Love.

This is what I have been thinking about today. Or at least what I thought was most blog-worthy:

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when other grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."

1 Corinthians 13 - The Message