Campground ladies, sing this song...

We haven't been to church camp since a fateful, fearful time in 2010 that changed everything for our family. I felt a little like I was walking on broken glass...but we went, we relaxed, we made friends, we got bug bites, and it was all very normal churchy campy stuff.

I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. (Isaiah 45:2a)

A hammock bought for $1.25 outside San Salvador in 2001 provided many naps...

...and sisterly swings.

There were the usual kid antics, smoke in the eyes, and dirty toes.

And we had a little extra fun with water balloons, a tradition of 20 years

for this church we're calling home. (from the looks of it, someone took it quite seriously.)

(for Thul kids, nothing really gets done without sticking out your tongue.)

Rosy manages to add grace even when pitching.

Katy was trying out for the major leagues of water balloon baseball

(and had the wettest hair to prove it - the little kids were thrilled that

she didn't miss a single balloon and smashed them all to smithereens.)

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. (Deuteronomy 31:8)

A weekend lost in the woods, a heart lost in wilderness

Perpetual gray rises out of the steely waves into the landscape of shoreline and finally up into the darker gray of a stormy twilight sky. We slam through waves in the little boat. I look down at the hull, that 1950's blue-green that is a smidge too green for robin's egg, a smidge too blue for jade. Up in the gray sky, one pink finger points out of a palm of sunset orange.

We roll slowly into the dock, and an otter flips in front of our boat. We sneak closer, and she comes up hissing and blinking, sending us on our way back to the sandbank. The boat slides up with a sloosh. The children run around me as I sit staring blankly at the boat while Aaron fetches the van. We drive back to our campsite slow, windows open, cooling the sweaty curls under my hat brim, the sunburnt kids silent in the back as we melt into the night. Deer slide cagey, liquid, like ghosts in the pine line on the beach road.

We come home, and I see how the kids have relearned how to be kids after three days of dirt, woods, and no toys. The overwhelming unloading begins, life jackets and laundry hanging over the front porch rail, and more laundry, bedding, and dishes to be faced in the morning. The tent hangs over the children's fort waiting for the drying sun tomorrow, the army green sheeting slippery through fingers, reminiscent of last night's thunderstorms.

I feel like I absorbed the gray and I walk like a shadow in and out. Alone. I come home to Internal Review Board worries for both my studies, set to start in just a week. Pray God works it out. Feel tired asking. Please, God, this one thing. Can you fix it for me? Please tell me I'm not going to do nothing in South Carolina for my two-week trip. Cars that don't work, a truck that guzzles gas with each passing day the runner doesn't run.

Old memories come up unawares like bilge water in this familiar campground, memories that cut sharp and bleed long. Why make new friends? New camping partners. How long can it last, I wonder. 

How do I praise from this place? Learn from this place? Thrive. I don't just want to survive. I want these kids to see me vibrant again. I want the gray to wear off. Instead I just walk deeper into the steel gray water each day. I open up my hands and close my eyes. Please, God, show me mercy. All I can offer you today is a broken hallelujah jumbled with anxiety and tears.