We spent this past week doing family camp at Redwood Christian Park near Santa Cruz. For a decade, this camp has been our home away from home come the second week of July, a place where we connect with God, with nature, and with each other without all the distractions of our everyday life. I was sure this would be my season to soar because this was the first year since we’ve been going where I didn’t have a baby or toddler attached to my hip. A time for me to fly into ministry alongside Scott who teaches young people at this camp. All I needed was for Cruz to stay in his three-year-old class for several hours each morning and night.
After signing Cruz into his class, I walked away from the playground where two teachers pushed little ones on the swings while other small children happily bumped down the slide. Cruz was in line for the slide when I snuck away. Moments later, I saw him running across the camp like an escaped prisoner. Heading for the forest just as fast as he could run. Right then I knew I wouldn’t be doing ministry with my husband this year.
The first day of camp was hard. Cruz would not let me out of his sight. While everyone else went to their morning Bible classes, I took Cruz for a walk around the camp, then went back to the missionary house, where we always stay, to read some of the blogs I follow on my iPhone. Jennifer Dukes Lee had posted this:
Jul 07, 2014 09:29 am
“So we pick up rocks to lay down burdens, collect the feathers so hope will fly. We hold on to the gifts we find in the simple stuff of earth, the gifts that help us to see, to wonder, and to celebrate our smallness again. Maybe today is the day for you to begin to see again, to choose what you’ll look for among natural things to help remind you of supernatural hope.”
After reading Jennifer’s blog, I asked myself what do I collect that reminds me of God? Sometimes I pick up rocks, and I always gather shells at the beach, but the main thing I collect are crosses. Crosses are not of the natural world so how could I gather them here at this camp?
Actually, I knew this would be easy. Picking up my camera, Cruz and I headed out on another walk through the redwoods. The top photo are two sticks I picked up near the missionary house and put together myself. This was my attempt to reach out for God. Everyone else was in their Bible classes so the camp was utterly quiet with just Cruz, the birds, and me chirping along. Actually Cruz wasn’t chirping, he wasn’t happy about another hike.
But we pressed on and I realized there are a lot of crosses in this world. All kinds of crosses I never notice. And as I walked, I felt God tenderly crossing paths with me. Meeting me right where I was without childcare for my child. Without a Bible in my hand. Without anything more than a fierce need to feel Jesus that day when I felt so down about missing out on ministry alongside my husband.
The following day, I took another cross walk with God and my camera. This time, after finishing with the high school kids, Scott watched Cruz while I strolled on my own. Immediately I went to my favorite place, the camp’s tiny prayer chapel that seats 25 people, though there’s hardly ever anyone in this tiny church. I once found a girl crying here– a teenager who worked at the camp– and I prayed with her. Another time I found a white-haired grandmother praying alone, but most of the time when I come here it’s just me.
And God.
God is always here.
If a bucket was in this little chapel, it would be filled with my tears. My pleas. My fervent prayers. Each July, I sit with Jesus here. Sometimes with a prayer partner, too. Or a young woman I’m ministering to during camp that I bring here. This year, I did no ministry. And the beloved prayer partner I used to sometimes pray with here is on a different life path now. And it’s left me brokenhearted.
This was something I really needed to deal with this year at camp. Adding more tears to my bucket in the prayer chapel. Because ultimately I held God responsible for taking my beloved prayer partner away. She still lives, but only on the edge of my life now, and I really miss her. I miss holding her hand in this tiny prayer church. I miss us bowing our heads together, not just at camp, but in life, praying for our husbands and families and all the wrongs of this world we want God to make right.
Most of all, I miss what used to be that can never be again. At least never be the same.
After leaving the prayer chapel, I walked to Cathedral Grove and sat down in front of this cross amongst the giant redwoods.
Another special place at camp where I witnessed a marriage take place that later came apart. A ministry team that also came apart. All this a lump stuck in my throat. A lump stuck in my heart. And God saying, “Forgive them. They know not what they’ve done.” This was where I had gotten stuck in unforgiveness. Because I thought surely they knew what they had done.
And in the tabernacle I let it go. After letting it go in the prayer chapel. And in Cathedral Grove at the foot of the cross and in the missionary house, me sitting on the couch in the lamplight before bed crying tears onto a book I was reading by Robin Jones Gunn, Victim of Grace, that jarred me into this moment of real forgiveness.
Which brings me to a neat part of my story. The missionary house sits nearly on top of the mountain overlooking the camp. The house is hidden among redwoods that reach way up in the sky. This safe, sweet house has pictures of missionaries on the fridge. And on a big cork board hanging on the hallway wall near the bathroom, but when I looked around the house, I couldn’t find a cross. Or a photo of Jesus or anything besides the photos of the missionaries that reminded me of God. So I asked the Lord to provide a way for me to buy a nice cross or a God picture to hang on the wall before we left at the end of the week. The challenge was, I had very little money to spend.
The following day at my favorite thrift store down the road from the camp, I found this picture of Jesus. When I saw it hanging up high with other large pictures in antique frames, I knew it was beyond perfect for the missionary house. But I also thought I’d never be able to afford it. The other paintings cost some real cash, but when I looked at Jesus hanging way up high, he was only $14 dollars.
Fourteen dollars I didn’t have in my purse.
So I prayed.
On Wednesday the whole camp went to the beach. This is a camp tradition our family loves. When we drove through quaint little Capitola headed for the beach, I saw this cross in someone’s driveway so I made Scott turn around to snap this picture: Jesus out of driftwood.
At the beach, I gathered stones to make another cross. Again, my way of reaching for God in the midst of my busy mommy day with our boys running all over the beach and Cruz removing his clothes before racing by the camp volleyball game butt naked. And one of the camp counselors watching the volleyball game saying, “He seems calmer here at the beach.”
I felt calmer too. Much calmer after several days of doing my crosswalk.
I loved my beach cross and the heart-shaped rock near the top of the cross that I brought home and turned into my new “write” rock for our fireplace mantle to replace the rock John broke before we left for camp.
On the way home from the beach, we stopped at the thrift store and bought the Jesus picture on sale for $11 dollars that day. The heavy wooden frame alone is probably worth $100. The other thrift store pictures hanging high on the wall cost substantially more.
Why doesn’t the world value Jesus?
But the world’s loss is our gain.
We hung the Jesus picture in the missionary house living room. I can’t wait to return next year to do my Bible study late at night and early in the morning on the couch in the lamplight with the Jesus picture hanging over the fireplace.
My week at camp wasn’t what I’d planned, but it turned out perfect. Just like I hadn’t planned four years ago finding out at camp I was pregnant with Cruz. I call him Cruz because he’s our Santa Cruz baby. We stood on the Santa Cruz Catholic Church steps across from the Santa Cruz mission when I handed Scott the pregnancy stick.
Cruz actually means “cross” in Spanish. Cruz’s real name is “Christian” as in Redwood Christian Park because it was at camp where the Lord told me I was pregnant with another son. So we drove to the pharmacy across from the thrift store where we got the Jesus picture to buy the pregnancy test. I peed on the stick in the bathroom, but tucked the test into my purse without looking at the results. And then we drove to the Santa Cruz mission, which was closed, so we walked across the street to the Catholic Cathedral steps. On the steps, I let Scott look at the test first. His huge smile told me I was pregnant. Sadly, I wasn’t happy like my husband. Right then on those steps, I named the baby Cruz~ my cross to bear. Another pregnancy in my forties. Twenty years of having babies. Twenty years of changing diapers. Twenty years of dying to myself.
I cringe now that I felt this way. Cruz is one of my greatest joys, though he’s still my greatest handful.
Later, we picked the name “Christian” for Cruz to honor our Lord Jesus Christ and this camp we love in the redwoods.
I have to say this was the sweetest family camp yet for me. Each day doing my crosswalk opened my eyes to things I hadn’t seen. Like unforgivenss still buried in my heart, though I thought I’d let it go after my cancer surgery in 2013. God gently showed me I hadn’t let it go, and He helped me lay it all down at the foot of his cross. God also showed me all the crosses I never see, and without Jesus, there is no meaning in any cross in this world.
And God showed me how beautiful my own little cross “Cruz” truly is. This precious child who runs me so hard and fast I’m taking wing with hope in Jesus.
So what do you collect? And why? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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