I spent the past three days counseling at Highland Retreat, the place where a piece of my heart will always live, and let me tell you, I feel so blessed. I can say without a doubt that the absolute happiest times of my life have been the summers I've spent working at camp, and this short week was no exception.
Three days sounds so short when we look at it from the lens of typical American life. But three days at camp s t r e t c h e s o u t so much more than you would imagine. It is a world unto itself. So at the close of my three days (a mere 72 hours) at my beloved Highland, I feel like I've experienced another life. I've lived another lifetime, not as a different person (because I feel most fully myself at camp -- or at least my best self), but in another context. (I could go on about how boring my everyday life seems now, but I won't.) Being there both stretches me dramatically and at the same time grounds me comfortably into my own skin. And the people I worked with, some of whom I met for the first time three nights ago, now feel like good friends.
These are the things that make living life not-at-camp so difficult. When you can be somewhere with incredible friendships, beautiful children, hilarious moments, profound encounters, living life at the top of your lungs -- why would you want to do anything else? When each day stretches out to include almost every emotion under the sun (but most of them good), making you feel more alive than you've ever felt before, why would you want to change anything? When you can sink into bed each night exhausted with the effort and thrill of living large, tired and glad right down to your very bones, who could settle for less?
These are the questions I've been asking myself since Tuesday night. And here is a related, but perhaps even more important, issue:
When I'm working at camp, I feel like I've found my calling, my most glorious passion in life. I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do. Who could ask for more than that, right? But I also feel -- now more than ever -- that it is so hard for me to make this work. When camp only runs 8 weeks of the year, but demands all your time and energy for those 8 weeks, how can I reconcile that life with my other responsibilities? I have to do something for the other 44 weeks of the year, and generally most of my other options want me to be committed year-round. Also, being married and working at summer camp isn't the easiest thing, especially when your spouse also has a full-time year-round job that he loves.
Which brings me to the question at hand. If working at camp is my utmost life's work, my most fulfilling and important experience, why does it feel so logistically impossible? In other words, why would God call me to do something that feels practically impossible to do?
So then, of course, I have to ask myself: Is it really impossible? Are we not to believe that with God all things are possible? Maybe I need to change the way I'm looking at the situation? For truly, if this is what I am meant to do, then I must find a way.
Thoughts and advice are welcome. Until next time, friends.
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