Meet Me in the Middle – of Nowhere?
School stresses, work is work no matter what you do. Home is where you can settle down and just chill for a few moments in this crazy journey we call life. Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it, or so I've heard. What to make of a schedule that is so packed that you forget what a day is like without something to do; it took me a while to figure that out. I won't lie, I actually don't like those rare days that come up when there is nothing that needs to be accomplished. I love my life just as it is with each week flying by as there is always something that needs to be done all around the clock. School, work, dance, class, and the list runs on. I love this crazy life that I live, but I found out over the weekend, that sometimes you just have to stop and take a look at the world around you instead of letting yourself run ahead. I found that you can miss so much if you don't stop once in a while and take a good look around and take everything in. Well, I did that this weekend, and I found something that I probably would not have found if I had not put my life on hold and left to go literally in the middle of nowhere.
This started a few weeks ago when my youth group, Cutting Edge 2, started planning a camping trip to Cooks Forest. We were going to rough it out, sleep in tents, go snipe hunting, cook over a campfire, and let's not even start on singing the campfire songs! There would be no phone service, and no communication with the rest of the world. All we had was the things we brought and each other. Already this sounded like an interesting weekend.
Finally, after three weeks, the day arrived that we would finally leave. Camping I knew would be amazing. There were twelve kids from my youth group coming, five boys, seven girls, five of our youth leaders and me; eighteen in all. We drove to Cook's Forest which is about three hours away. Leaving on Friday afternoon we arrived there around eight thirty that night. It was nothing like we expected. Our cell phones, well, they were useless as we had no service where we were. We had two cabins to stay in while we were there. They were really low to the ground and each had four windows facing the trees. The cabins were clearly made from the trees surrounding us, and were quite small, but creatively decorated. Hunting trophies hung on the wall across from the door. The room was filled with mismatched furniture. There was an old wooden bed in one corner of the room with a quilt covering it. There were two couches one on each side, of the room. In the center of the room was an antique wood burning stove. To the right there was a fireplace with a big shelf above it that lined the wall. On it was an old antique clock, and two lanterns one on either side. Off to the right side of the fireplace was a gas-powered stove, table with chairs made from barrels, a sink and a few cabinets for food. The left wall was lined with a refrigerator and a tall wooden dresser with a round mirror on top. The floor was covered with pink carpeting, and you could see through some parts in the wood ceiling from where bat traps were hung. One lone light hung from the ceiling on the far side of the room, but the cabin was surprisingly well lit. This would be my home for the next two days. Walking outside there was a picnic table sitting under the pine tree, and a wood swing around the other side. We were in a clearing, but looking all around you that night, you could see the tall shadows of the trees surrounding you, and a light through the trees coming from another cabin in the woods not too far from us. In the middle of the clearing was a campfire that one of our youth leaders had already built. After unpacking all of our things, we set them in the cabins, set up the tents and walked up to the fire. You have not gone camping till you have had smores. We all roasted marshmallows and at Hershey chocolate, all the while talking with each other and all excited for the next day.
After we finished with the fire, we all went down to the cabin for devotions. It was an interesting scene fitting eighteen people in a cabin no bigger than sixteen feet long, and twelve feet wide, but we managed and were comfortable. Devotions were short that evening, as everyone was tired and some already falling asleep. After finishing devotions, the boys went outside to their tents, and half the girls to the other cabin about twenty feet away from ours next to the woods.
That first night we went to bed about one in the morning, but the boys and those of us in the first cabin were up at six the next morning. After dressing, and finding that the girls in the other cabin were still sleeping, two of our youth leaders started making breakfast and the remaining six of us and Boo, the dog, went on a four and a half mile walk. We walked passed the lake where we would be canoeing later that day, and the beauty of it all, I forgot what the world was like when all civilization seemed to have never been. The tall trees all surrounding you and the lake and the animals – it was so beautiful there! The mountain was covered in patches of different shades of green and a few red as some of the trees were just beginning to surrender to the harvest time. Sure, I've noticed the trees do this every year around this time, but I never really stopped to look at them, and see the beauty in it all. We walked four and a half miles that morning - the last mile and a half was all uphill. We walked passed a cemetery and I told everyone that I belonged there, six feet under and a stone on top of me.
Running the last half mile back to camp, we were welcomed by the smell of pancakes and sausage cooking. After a quick breakfast, we all went up to sit by the fire as we started on our devotions. Our devotions were focused on choices, and how the choices we make in our lives today, big or small, can change us and affect our future. Thinking on that, my making the choice to go camping did change me. It gave me the opportunity to take a break from my normal, crazy life and relax in the beauty of God's creation. The sky was cloudless and blue like a robin's egg, the tall trees that surrounded us were in many different shades of greens and reds and yellows, as autumn is here, and you could hear the birds singing their sweet song. There were many deer to be seen at the edge of the clearing drinking from the stream that flowed through. Everything around there was so beautiful, and I could not look around seeing and hearing everything around me without seeing God in His creation.
Also seen was a small cabin through the woods hidden behind the trees. It was up high on the hill, but you could see a light coming through the window late at night. In that cabin lives an old, blind man. Every morning he comes out with a long stick and he stands at the very edge of the clearing in the shadows of the trees with his chin resting on his hands which are placed on the top of this stick. He stands there and listens to the sounds of the forest and his useless eyes stare straight ahead. Our youth leaders told us about his man, but we all thought that they were trying to scare us, but we were proven wrong. Some of the girls were so freaked out about him, I found it quite comical. I have to say, the old man on the mountain completed the whole scene for a camping trip. That, and wolves and coyotes howling at night.
During our personal devotional time, I sat high on the hill where I could see everything around me. Away from all distractions of life like phones, books, music, or even other people, I was able to sit back and enjoy God's creation feeling so close to Him, and spending time with Him, reading my Bible, and praying. God met me on that mountain in the middle of nowhere. He took me up in his arms and drew me near to him. He reminded me that he is the master craftsman; he sits as a refiner and purifier of silver. A silversmith holds silver in the hottest part of the fire, making it easier to mold, then after forming his desired shape, keeps a close eye on it. He knows that the silver has been refined when he can see his image in it. In this way, God reminded me that he holds me in the storms and trials that I go through, molds me, keeps his eyes on me at all times, and then brings me out of the fire when he can see his image in me. I can see all that in the beauty of his creation. With every season that passes. In the transition from summer to fall, all the colors of the leaves and everything slowly surrenders itself to the time of harvest. When autumn turns to winter and the bare trees are covered in frost and when everything in nature seems to be sleeping, I can still see God in creation. But I can especially see him in creation when the winter fades and spring comes and everything is made new again. Little did I think of this before I was brought to the middle of nowhere and sitting alone up on the mountain. God met me there. I drew near to Him, and then he drew near to me – he met me in the middle, in the middle of nowhere.
If given the chance, I would not hesitate to go there again. That whole weekend I was surrounded by nature, and by close friends. There is nothing that could have made that weekend better. We all spent hours talking to each other, looking at the stars, getting closer to each other and getting closer to God through nature. It was really great.
There was so much that we did there, even more than I mentioned above, but what did not change was, no matter what we did, I could see God in everything. God was there.
That weekend brought me back to where I needed to be. I found my way, and now that's where I'm going. God is calling me down a road, and I may not see where it will lead in the end, but we walk by faith, not by sight. So I'm walking where He leads, and doing as He commands me to. What I've learned is this: to follow God in everything, and when he leads me to a place, to listen for his still, small voice and to look and find him in everything. Every shadow is evidence of sun. When in the valley, look to the mountains, God is there; God is in the midst of everything.
