When God Whispers…

Many might remember my first Kid’s Camp 2 years ago.  This was one of the moments when God challenged me a lot about being willing to sacrifice.  You might remember the story of the first night trying to fall asleep and me laying there in the heat unable to sleep.  You might remember my argument with God about how this was too much and how if I didn’t sleep I would be useless at camp.  It was at that moment when God reminded me that I could survive this camp on little sleep, and that if he was putting me in the situation that he would get me through it.  I learned that year that I needed to stop saying “I can’t to God”, but to say “I can, but I need your strength”.  Then you might remember the blessing that year of the unexpected move that I got the next day down to another building where I was able to sleep well the rest of the 4 nights.

Well here I am heading off to camp 2 years later.  I have been asked again to be in the same room with the same group of kids.  I knew that this year there will be no escape like there was 2 years ago and that it would likely mean very little sleep.  I also knew that somehow God would get me through it.  We arrived at camp and we helped the kids set up their beds.  Ethan and Tyler are in a bed together on the bottom bunk.  I was going to get the bottom bunk next to them, but there were too many other kids who needed a bottom bunk and so I ended up moving myself up to the top.  The top bunk is worse because of the heat and and there is no place to hang up a mosquito net.   Okay God here we go!  Our first night arrives and the boys couldn’t make it to the end with all the rest of the kids.  The kids here don’t go to sleep until around 10 and my kids are used to their 8 oclock bedtime.  So around 8:45 after dinner I took them up and tucked them into bed.  They fell asleep quite easily together even with the heat.  They even slept through all the other kids coming into the room an hour later and turning on the lights.  After getting all the kids down I climbed up to my bed.  I felt the heat and the sweat start dripping right away.  I lay there thinking and praying about the week ahead.  Then I rolled over on my side and felt a soft gentle breeze.  I looked up in wonder at the small crack of the window right at the edge of my bed.  It was one small corner of my bed that had that breeze, but that one corner was all I needed.  I crammed myself in the corner and just marveled at that little breeze.  It was God’s reminder to me, his whisper that he was taking care of me.  “Trust me”.  I can’t tell you what joy I found in that simple breeze and how much I thanked God for it as I dozed off to sleep.  When I woke up in the middle of then night to take all the kids in the room to the bathroom, I noticed that the breeze was gone.  It made me thank the Lord even more knowing at that moment the special gift that he had sent specifically my way.  The whisper of his love.

Later in that week Ethan and I were praying together before bed.  Camp was a little harder for him this year because he was with the older kids, but he was the youngest of the older kids and so often wasn’t allowed to do much in the quizzes and game times.  This was hard on Ethan and we were praying about it together.  Then the next day he came running up to me and said, “Mom I found a friend”.  One of the boys there had taken Ethan under his wings and was making Ethan feel important.  I marveled again to see how God not only whispering to me, but also to my son.  Whispering to him, “that he was valued”.

Thinking back over camp, I am reminded that when we trust God and follow where he leads that gives us exactly what we need to make it through the road he has lead us to.  Those reminders and whispers God sends my way are so important, because I so easily forget how he cares.  I am reminding myself of this as we head into a season that I know will be challenging for us.  I am reminding myself to listen to God’s whispers.  To listen and know that he will be reminding me of exactly what I need to hear in the dark and tough moments.

How has God been whispering to you?