Camping in the summer with Meme and Grandad was a big part of my childhood. They'd take me and my older brother and sister David and Vicki and my cousins Shawn and Angela to places as far as Colorado. It seemed rational to me at the time, but looking back it seems pretty phenomenal. I was the youngest and still had my baby teeth on these trips. My brother was the oldest; a preteen. How did five squirmy kids and two adults fit in a small camper trailer? We made cookies and Kool-aid and my grandparents helped us do our own devotions at our campsite. A couple of times we invited the neighbors. Those trips are sweet in my memory. 

I've had four adult camping trips that were also memorable, though not for the same reasons.

The first was with Jason and I along with my mom and dad's Russian exchange student, Taya (she's kind of like my sister).  It started out beautiful with us camped outside on a hill with a storm rolling in. We were able to watch a show of lightning miles away. That was the last of the night's beauty. I woke up to Jason beating wildly about his legs. He said something had crawled on him and had hit at it until he couldn't feel crawling anymore. He abruptly went back to sleep. I did not. The next morning we found an expired tarantula curled up beside his sleeping bag. There's a picture of it somewhere. Curled up, that monster was still the size of Jason's hand. I kid you not.

That should have been enough, but we took our youth group camping too. Jason lost some arm hair on that trip showing the kids that flour is combustible using the campfire he'd made. Singed hair smells bad.

We took another camping trip years later with my sister and her family. We'd found a great place in central Texas that was historically connected to Quannah Parker. That camping excursion only lasted hours; enough time to get our tents up only to be swallowed up by a torrential storm. The storm was short-lived but the anger of an army of ants thereafter was not. They thought to overtake us, but we surrendered and went back home.

Dinosaur Park in Glen Rose was the last camping trip we've taken. I was eight and a half months pregnant with Rylie when we camped at Dinosaur Park. We had a trailer, but for some reason our suitcases and ice chests and such were in the back of our truck. The rain once again met us there. Our camping started out with our furiously transferring suitcases and lawn chairs into the trailer. I spent the first night with contractions. That was an uncomfortable trip.

Camping is a time when stories are told, maybe around a fire or in our case,  a dry spot out of the rain. Camping is also a place where stories are made. But truthfully most camping trips aren't without their miseries. Camping trips usually include mosquitoes and cramped living quarters; uncomfortable temperatures and at some point complaining.

Yesterday we attended The Tabernacle Experience at our church. Check my Facebook for a short interview Jason did about it. The tour was powerful and moving. I couldn't begin to share with you what the experience was like but thoughts have been rolling around in my head since our going.

The tour takes you back to when the Israelites were camped out in the desert after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Our church has on loan, a replica of the tabernacle that the people of Israel carried around with them which they would set up in their camp. Appropriately, our experience in the tabernacle camp yesterday wasn't without rain. The weather was slightly miserable. I thought about the people of Israel and what we read in scripture about their attitudes much of the time they wandered.

 

In the desert the whole community grumbled...  (v. 2)
"If only we had died at the LORD'S hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!" Exodus 16:3

I remembered a phrase used in the leaflet given to us prior to the tour yesterday.

Tabernacle means "dwelling".  The idea behind it was that God would have His own tent among their tents.

As I stood on soggy ground yesterday I was struck with a stronger than before realization that Holy God pitched his tent amongst theirs. And as imperfect as I am, He has made his dwelling in me; sinful, grumbling me.

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.  And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. Romans 8:11

To think that he dwells in a heart like mine....

If you get a chance to head to First Baptist in Nederland by the fifteenth, this coming Sunday, go. It's quite the experience.

And Meme and Grandad, if you get a chance to read this, know that I better appreciate the effort and love it took to go camping with a bunch of kids who wouldn't understand what you were doing for them........until now.

Don't forget to subscribe if you'd like to receive these posts by email.