I am convinced that every time we take time away we get better at hearing Jesus’ directive.

Getting Away Can Mean Getting Closer

Whatever possessed me to imagine this would be relaxing!? I mumbled under my breath.

For several weeks now, our family had reserved this weekend to go camping at one of the many lovely Texas state parks near us. But what sounded like a good idea two months ago now felt like an absurd chore.

I stood silently, hands on my hips, staring at the disarrayed piles of camping equipment and lists of things still to do and pack. I simply couldn’t conceive how or what made any of this fun. What was I thinking?

“Michelle, honey, go outside and play with your sister for a while, please?” I pleaded with my four year old.

“But mamma, I want to help!”

Moving my piles from one end of the room to the other is more “help?” than I can handle right now, I thought critically.

“Tell you what,” I offered, “I will call you guys in to help as soon as I’m ready for the BIG stuff, ok? But first I need to figure out all these little things.”

That seemed to content my energetic eager beaver, for now. And she nodded as she bounced her way out the back door.

I didn’t grow up camping. In fact, my first camping experience was as a married adult, pregnant, sharing a tent with a one-and-a-half year old son--and a new puppy. Did I mention that I was pregnant?

And yet, I came back.

In spite of the difficult initial work that’s inevitable as I think through the details of the weekend and pack, camping has been for our family an awesome way to take time for fun together. It is also inexpensive. Whether for a weekend or a week, we have discovered amazing places to camp, often associated with some historical event or place. One summer, instead of traveling for 16 hours straight to visit Michael’s family, we took our time camping as we made our way through Texas, Arkansas and Missouri to Illinois. We keep going back to Rocky Mountain National Park in the heart of Colorado. And we still laugh remembering stories from the incredible camping vacation we shared with our friends the Osman’s in Yellowstone, complete with bears and wolves and white water rafting.

My children have loved the carefree feeling of camping. As soon as the tents are up, they set out exploring the area and hiking the trails. Or they opt to lay on a hammock with a good book in hand. On one of our camping adventures in Colorado, Michelle created a small altar with a cross out of sticks and stones and declared it our “holy place” for family prayers while we “lived” there.

We go camping to just “be” together. No phones. No calendars. We eat when we get hungry. And no one has to shower unless they want to—or unless the rest of the family decides that it’s simply unbearable to be around that person! We take turns washing dishes as we do at home, so no one is stuck with too much work. Nothing to sweep. Nothing to pick up.

And my husband, God bless him, loves to try out new recipes on our family’s handy dandy iron dutch oven. His amazing meals over charcoal include delicious meat stew and an incredible breakfast casserole, biscuits and all. I often think that we eat better when we are camping than we do many weeks at home.

Nothing can compare to the fun of roasting marshmallows and creating S’mores in the flames of our camp fire. And there’s something almost magical about getting away that turns even adults rather silly on a camping weekend. I specially enjoy walks with my children in the dark, glancing up at God’s artistic renditions lighting up the sky, and spotting the inevitable exhibition of shooting stars, God’s natural fireworks.

I am convinced that every time we take time away we get better at hearing Jesus? directive, “look at the birds in the sky... are you not more important than they?... Learn a lesson from the way the wild flowers grow...Stop worrying...Your heavenly Father knows all that you need...Let tomorrow take care of itself.”

“Mamma, you ready yet?”

I couldn’t help but smile at Michelle’s eager face poking into the room from the open door.

“Sure, honey,” I said truthfully.

“Daddy will be home soon, right? I can’t wait to get there... Are you excited, Mamma?”

“I sure am, Michelle. I just had to take the time to remember.”