I wrote this last monday, but due to that which is listed in the title, was too busy to edit and get it posted. Here it is now though. A follow up to.... follow.
You may have noticed that I changed the label on the Thankful posts from 'Thankful Thursday' to just Thankful. That was for the purpose of chilling out a little in the arena of nerdiness on this here blog.
Hope you don't mind. There's still plenty of nerdiness and cheese to go around.
This change frees me up (not that I wasn't free before but... ya know) from writing/posting those thankful posts just on Thursdays and makes me able to write and post about thankfulness on any day of the week and the content (if time sensetive) still be relevant. I originally said I would do it on thursdays in order to hold myself to writing a thankful post once a week, and I still intend to write about it (at least) once a week, but it's just unnecessary that I write it on Thursdays.
I hardler (that's a new word I just made on accident but it means hardly ever) do this, but I want to update you on my real life right now; not just an abstract lesson I've been learning in my real life right now or my real life in the past.
Today is monday and I'm writing this from work- it's okay, I'm a receptionist (Dumb and Dumber reference, anyone? And, why yes, I did watch it this past weekend).
When I get off around 3, I'm heading (with my car full of stuff) to camp at which I'll be a counselor for the next three days.
I've been a counselor 5 days a week for 6-8 weeks of the summers of 2010 and 2011, and part time last year in 2012. This year, the whole focus and structure of the camp has changed and it's not even called camp anymore; now it's a discipleship program. Much more full-time, one-on-one discipleship and much less of what has been normal camp. I'm glad they're doing this program- it seems really rich and beneficial for the people involved - it just isn't for me. Even if they were doing the usual camp shenanigans, I wouldn't be out there very much, but since this year is more of a high, full-time committment, I had pretty much given up hope on being able to spend much time out there.
That is, until last week.
I got a call from a lady who helps lead a ministry that has uses the camp facility for a week each summer to put on their own camp for the kids that attend the ministry. Although the camp itself has changed their curriculum, this group is still going out to the camp for a week and doing their normal program. In the past, the counselors that were already working at the camp served as tent parents but since the structure of the camp had changed, the group was asked to provide their own counselors and I was asked me to be one of them! So I talked to the merciful people at my job (you'll get it if you know where I work, and if you don't know, follow the link) and got the two extra days off (I usually have wednesdays off anyway). So I thought I would have nothing to do with camp this year. Instead, I'll be there for a whole camp week as a counselor on what was formerly known as the easiest week of the summer. WIN WIN WIN!
I'm really looking forward to the step back from my normal life and into a very different one. One that may be super exhausting physically, but is very fulfilling spiritually and emotionally. I'm really thankful for this opportunity, not only to do what I'm doing but to take a few days away from normal. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I want to get away from in my normal life. In fact, it's gonna be hard in a few ways to step away from my normal life, even for a short time. One of them hit me while I was hugging my awesome boyfriend (who is also my best friend) last night. I won't see him for like, four days, and yet, standing there in the driveway, it didn't matter too much that its such a short time. It just mattered that I had to go without him and his great hugs for any amount of days at all.
Among the much less significant things that will be missed from my real life:
1) a shower and bathroom right across the hallway from where I sleep, rather than 200 feet away
2) Arrested Development and One Tree Hill -so in other words, my unproductive but entertaining hobbies
3) NOT living out of a duffel bag
4) freedom to go running with my spare time (although I did bring my running shoes and clothes, just in case I can steal away for a nice country road run in my free time. Ahh. That sounds fantastic.).
It might sound a little (or a lot) like I'm complaining but that's not my attitude here. These are simply the big and little things I'll be missing, and growing more thankful for, as I step back and pan out of my real life for a few days and see them from an unusual angle, through this blessing of an opportunity.
This concept is a little like what I said in the last thankful post. About hiccups in life and how I want to be thankful for the things that go wrong and remind me to be thankful for how smooth my life usually is (and if you thought of that post the next time you got the hiccups, kudos to you).
I might miss my normal life for a few days here but I'm thankful to step out of it and for the experience I'm blessed to have. To be refreshed. To pan out and see things in a new way. To miss the things I don't need but am blessed with.
I'm excited for it, and I'm excited for when I get home and back to my tremendously blessed, real life.
______________________________________________________________
You may have noticed that I changed the label on the Thankful posts from 'Thankful Thursday' to just Thankful. That was for the purpose of chilling out a little in the arena of nerdiness on this here blog.
Hope you don't mind. There's still plenty of nerdiness and cheese to go around.
This change frees me up (not that I wasn't free before but... ya know) from writing/posting those thankful posts just on Thursdays and makes me able to write and post about thankfulness on any day of the week and the content (if time sensetive) still be relevant. I originally said I would do it on thursdays in order to hold myself to writing a thankful post once a week, and I still intend to write about it (at least) once a week, but it's just unnecessary that I write it on Thursdays.
I hardler (that's a new word I just made on accident but it means hardly ever) do this, but I want to update you on my real life right now; not just an abstract lesson I've been learning in my real life right now or my real life in the past.
Today is monday and I'm writing this from work- it's okay, I'm a receptionist (Dumb and Dumber reference, anyone? And, why yes, I did watch it this past weekend).
When I get off around 3, I'm heading (with my car full of stuff) to camp at which I'll be a counselor for the next three days.
I've been a counselor 5 days a week for 6-8 weeks of the summers of 2010 and 2011, and part time last year in 2012. This year, the whole focus and structure of the camp has changed and it's not even called camp anymore; now it's a discipleship program. Much more full-time, one-on-one discipleship and much less of what has been normal camp. I'm glad they're doing this program- it seems really rich and beneficial for the people involved - it just isn't for me. Even if they were doing the usual camp shenanigans, I wouldn't be out there very much, but since this year is more of a high, full-time committment, I had pretty much given up hope on being able to spend much time out there.
That is, until last week.
I got a call from a lady who helps lead a ministry that has uses the camp facility for a week each summer to put on their own camp for the kids that attend the ministry. Although the camp itself has changed their curriculum, this group is still going out to the camp for a week and doing their normal program. In the past, the counselors that were already working at the camp served as tent parents but since the structure of the camp had changed, the group was asked to provide their own counselors and I was asked me to be one of them! So I talked to the merciful people at my job (you'll get it if you know where I work, and if you don't know, follow the link) and got the two extra days off (I usually have wednesdays off anyway). So I thought I would have nothing to do with camp this year. Instead, I'll be there for a whole camp week as a counselor on what was formerly known as the easiest week of the summer. WIN WIN WIN!
I'm really looking forward to the step back from my normal life and into a very different one. One that may be super exhausting physically, but is very fulfilling spiritually and emotionally. I'm really thankful for this opportunity, not only to do what I'm doing but to take a few days away from normal. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I want to get away from in my normal life. In fact, it's gonna be hard in a few ways to step away from my normal life, even for a short time. One of them hit me while I was hugging my awesome boyfriend (who is also my best friend) last night. I won't see him for like, four days, and yet, standing there in the driveway, it didn't matter too much that its such a short time. It just mattered that I had to go without him and his great hugs for any amount of days at all.
Among the much less significant things that will be missed from my real life:
1) a shower and bathroom right across the hallway from where I sleep, rather than 200 feet away
2) Arrested Development and One Tree Hill -so in other words, my unproductive but entertaining hobbies
3) NOT living out of a duffel bag
4) freedom to go running with my spare time (although I did bring my running shoes and clothes, just in case I can steal away for a nice country road run in my free time. Ahh. That sounds fantastic.).
It might sound a little (or a lot) like I'm complaining but that's not my attitude here. These are simply the big and little things I'll be missing, and growing more thankful for, as I step back and pan out of my real life for a few days and see them from an unusual angle, through this blessing of an opportunity.
This concept is a little like what I said in the last thankful post. About hiccups in life and how I want to be thankful for the things that go wrong and remind me to be thankful for how smooth my life usually is (and if you thought of that post the next time you got the hiccups, kudos to you).
I might miss my normal life for a few days here but I'm thankful to step out of it and for the experience I'm blessed to have. To be refreshed. To pan out and see things in a new way. To miss the things I don't need but am blessed with.
I'm excited for it, and I'm excited for when I get home and back to my tremendously blessed, real life.