Holy Exhaustion

I spent the weekend at Camp Caswell with the youth from my church. We had a great time worshiping, learning about our spiritual gifts, and exploring the forts that were built for the Civil War but never used. We went last year but spent our free time in only one fort, not knowing or not caring that there were at least four or five. The girls took lots of great pictures of each other there, and it's very fun to think about what each area might have been used for and what might have happened there.

Some of us ended up pretty much bushwacking our way across the top of one of the forts. There was a trail, but it wasn't used often or maintained, so the walk involved quite a bit of moving aside branches, surprise thorns, fear of poison ivy, and variations in steepness. It was inspiring to see how the kids helped each other along, offering strong hands to higher ground, words of encouragement, head counts, and leadership such that I was there only as a token adult. What a great feeling, and what a great group we have.

That night as we sat around the table playing Apples to Apples (which is very different with youth because they seem to take things more literally than my adult friends have in that game. For example, more than one person dismissed a response, such as Michael Jackson for "boisterous" or Mark Twain for "timeless," because the person was dead. I've never heard that from an adult in that game!), more faces than not were a few shades pinker than they had been that morning. The sun and wind had joined forces to create the effect. Several people's arms had scratches from errant branches, and those who didn't bear physical marks of the journey were visibly tired.

All but one of my arm scratches have gone away, but my eyes have that puffy, sandy feeling that's so familiar, and the balls of my feet are happy to be at rest. I'm very blessed to be able to associate this feeling almost exclusively with good things: ski trips, plane rides, summer camp, and the myriad forms of excitement that almost hinge on exhaustion. What a great gift God gave us in the days and weekends and weeks that jolt us out of the ordinary, take us to a new place, and deprive us of rest in order to give us games, conversations, laughter, exploration, long walks on top of forts, and the sense that we are not missing a thing.