It's a Fine, Fine Life // Link-Up & Camp

Did I mention that I went to camp last weekend?  Because I did, and it was great. I'm sorry - sometimes I forget to communicate really important details like that with the people around me.  It's not that I didn't want you to know that I was going - that couldn't be further from the truth, because all I've wanted to do since arriving home on Sunday is to talk about what a great time I had.   I just forget sometimes.  Allow me to remember and bring you up to speed. 

Making the best time to camp meant rushing straight home from school on Friday, spending a frantic half hour packing as much as I could, and meeting my fellow camp goers in a church parking lot less than an hour later. We all piled into cars and vans and started the four hour drive to northwestish Michigan.  I spent the majority of the time sleeping, and it was wonderful because I needed it so badly.  School is hard.  

Making the best of our time at camp meant spending hours and hours and hours with cold, raw faces, racing down a snowy mountain on tubes made for doing just that. It meant early morning competitions and early morning hot chocolate to warm us, the spectators. 

                         

It looked like new friends and old ones to encourage us in what we're all trying really hard to do.  

It was captured in jumping just because and feeling so happy and so, so at peace. 

Making the best of our time at camp saw relationships built or rebuilt, now friends grown closer or old friends brought back.  

It resulted in tie-dye shirts (and hands - mine are still a gross shade of green) and one step closer to a challenge completed.  

Most importantly, though, a weekend full of time used in the best way focused on the important things.  It focused in so tight that room wasn't left for things that don't matter - a great reminder to me as I'm constantly crowded by things to do and voices to hear.  Less isn't bad: simplicity, unoccupied moments - that leaves time and opportunity for the people and things that need it.  Emptiness creates a space for rest and joy where before there was busy, occupying, life-draining noise.  

Psalm 62:1,5 // It is surely true that I find my rest in God. He is the God who saves me . . . Yes, I must find my rest in God. He is the one who gives me hope. 

Allie

P.S. Keep an eye out for this: