Defining Moments #1

Is there something you remember from earlier in your life that was a turning point in your life?  Something that changed the course of your thoughts ......your attitude.....how you viewed the world around you?  My next few blogs I am going to talk about some of my "defining moments" as I call them.  These are times in my life that I will never forget .....no matter how old I get :)  Some of these moments may be joyful and happy times and others may be painful and wounding.

BIBLE CAMP

One of my fondest memories of my teen years was going to Green Lake Bible Camp.  http://www.gllm.org/  I went four or five summers in a row for a week each summer.  I loved it.  I remember the first year we took a huge bus with a bunch of kids from our church.  I met many new friends and people that I still keep in touch with or at least know where they are still today.  Many of us that first summer made a pact that we would meet the last week of bible camp each summer and a few of us did.

We experienced many things together.  We played games like underground worship (which I think was banned a couple years later)which...when I think about it now....really makes me realize that I did learn things there...it wasn't just all fun and games.  We swam in the lake and each summer they would still make me take the swimming test to prove that I could swim before I could go past the rope (I was a lifeguard in training for crying out loud lol).  We played sports, walked into Spicer (it seemed soo far) and did the whole water slide and beach afternoon, we helped pick corn one summer, we put together a talent show one summer, etc.  

One summer while we were at camp a group of us were talking one afternoon about different students from our school that had died.  We talked about fond memories of them etc.  At the end of that conversation our pastor came to get the four of us that were from B.E. and told us that one of our classmates had died on a boy scout trip.  We were devestated! There is more to the story that I remember that actually hurts to even think about.   As I think back though I realize that we were in the best place we could be with Christian friends around us to support us and help us through.  I really felt something changed for our small group from B.E. that day.  We had experienced something together that we will never forget and we learned things about each other that week that caused a bond of deeper friendship.

On a lighter note....we had the best praise and worship!  The chapel was beautiful!  We would all pile in there and start to sing songs we had learned and before the worship time was over we were standing on the pews singing at the top of our lungs to God.  We had great campfires!  We had time together to talk about the theme of the summer and even the quiet time was good.  It was awesome and we all wished that we could take that excitement home with us to our home churches.  It just never seemed the same when we got home because we had experienced and learned things that caused us to change and everything at home had stayed the same.  I remember crying every summer because I did not want to go back home.  I wanted to stay where I felt closer to God and where the people around me were experiencing the sames things that I was.  

Have you ever experienced something like this?  Something that...when you try to explain it to others they just don't get it because "you had to be there?"