Camp

We are heading to a church camp today that was very important to me during my childhood. I began attending with my family when I was eleven years old, so these memories run deep. We missed it for most of the years that we lived in BC, but have attended the last two summers, and my kids are coming to love it as well, and each additional year will strengthen this memory they will keep from childhood.

I love connecting with old friends, and my family, and making new friends every year. I like relaxing in a space that is beautiful, and eating most meals outside, and hearing the kids run and screech in the trees, at the playground, and in the pool.

Last year, on the Sunday of the August long weekend, our new-to-us trailer was pummeled in the worst hailstorm Alberta had seen in a century, and became an insurance write-off. I really loved our trailer, and was deeply sad when the time came to say goodbye to it, but very kind friends have generously offered their trailer for us to use this week, and we are extremely grateful.

With each passing year, Jason and I find ourselves further theologically from the speakers at the camp, and that has been an interesting process. There is always something for me to learn and take away, but I spend time wrestling with the concepts that are taught; testing them to see if they ring true with what I now believe about God. I try to read the passages that are taught with new eyes to see truths I haven't seen before, and I pray and ask God to bring scripture alive and give me ways to understand what it was intended to mean, and not necessarily what I have always been taught.

I love the freedom I have in my faith. I think I've been searching for it my entire life, and am finally settling into its feel and groove, in much the same way as a new pair of shoes must be broken in. For years I worried if I changed any of my beliefs, I was sliding down a path into hell, but I have now fully walked away from that fear, and I know that God is not offended by new ideas. Jesus said that men must pour new wine into new wineskins, because the old wineskins could not take the new wine. From now on I will do as Paul said in Romans 12, "Test and approve what God's will is." I plan to do that this week, and hopefully move closer to God as I continue to move in his freedom.