Nature's Call (n.) - annual weekend of camping with about 150 other Catholic young adults at Lake Pomme de Terre in southern MO/the true epitome of God's country. Activities include campfires and the things you eat and drink around them (turtle, beer, roasted Starbursts), vicious sports and less vicious games, impulsive midnight lake jumping, outdoor Mass, great theological conversations, great idiotic conversations, and general nature lovin.
Being a first time camper, I quickly learned that true roughing it is not my style (see title phrase coined by Jen Revers) so I was thankful for the on-site Port-a-Potties and the very off-site dirty old showers. Amazing how low one's hygiene standards can really go. But anyways, I think God decided that I was having trouble listening lately so He blessed me with visual displays of His love instead. Our campsite was on a steep hill jutting out into the lake, so it was dazzling to wake up to the sun sparkling on the water. But it was the stars that really got me. I've never in my life seen a sky like that, not even from the train bridge in Kirksville. After an overcast day on Sunday the clouds broke through and word around the campfire was the view was killer if you laid out in the clearing where we parked our cars. I grabbed my beach towel and pulled up a patch of grass away from the chatty group, because I had this feeling God wanted to talk to me. I was pretty full of emotions and wouldn't have even known where to start in prayer so I tried my best to just listen.
God didn't speak to me...he sang. His beauty was just staggering. I'm just now remembering that the priest who heard my confession earlier that day (in the woods, the coolest) talked about how God demonstrates his love through beauty, among other things...how appropriate. I laid there, tears streaming down my face, feeling waves of love wash over and over me. The previous night I had slept poorly and that day I couldn't even fall asleep for a nap. Sleep rarely eludes me like that. But basking in God's radiance was like being rocked to sleep by a loving parent.
It became obvious to me that a God who would paint me a picture of such brilliant and complex beauty would never forget me or design anything but plans for my welfare. Or cause me unnecessary pain. Looking back over several months I could see, as I always do eventually, why things happen the way they do. My struggles have made me grow in wisdom and continually draw me closer to Jesus. He has protected my heart at my most vulnerable times, and this weekend even blessed me with some resolution of a particular question. And it occurred to me that any future hurt related to this struggle is not something I need to understand. God usually debriefs me after a while anyways but all I need to know is He has chosen me to bear some suffering for His sake. It's nothing at all compared to what He already bore for mine.
Oh, hey, NC20? I'm there.
Note the well-deserved beer opened immediately after setting up the tent. Woof.
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