End of Summer End of An Era

End of Summer, End of an Era

The Summer camping season is finally over the last group to use El Nathan was the Navajo Family Bible Conference. They had what you would recognize as an old fashioned “Camp Meeting” which really met at a camp. They had close to 800 or so individual some who stayed all day and night and others who drove in during the evening services. I attended the evening English service on Wednesday night for a lesson on Jonah. We met in a tent and dodged bugs while hearing a good message on the prodigal prophet.

With the end of camp comes the time for LeeOra and I to prepare for the rest of the year and in a very real way the rest of our lives together. For the first time in 30 years we no longer have a child at home. Lauren was unable to get the financing to allow her to attend Northern Arizona University here in Flagstaff so she returned to Texas where she could afford the in state tuition. I have never looked forward to this day but knew it was inevitable if you raised your children to one day step out on their own to face the world and serve the Lord.

So now we sit in an very quiet emptier home without the sound of either a baby crying, a toddler running, a preteen leaping into your arms after you get home or a teenager asking for money to go to the movies. At the same time our home sits in the middle of a empty campground void of the sound of squeaky swings, running children or hymns being sung in the chapel. It is peaceful and quiet, the quiet that comes after raising your children and serving the needs of others in a ministry that has for now ended.

In the middle of the noise that was child rearing and camp, you often wonder when it will end but then it does with a profound and unmistakable silence that echoes from memory to memory in your mind. I enjoy the peace and thank God for the quiet but more than that I thank Him for what the silence followed. I thank Him that it is not the silence of a house that never shook with the sound of children racing from living room to bedroom and back again or the silence of a life which never served God. It is the silence of something accomplished that will continue to echo for years to come. An echo that will not completely cease until it makes its final distinctive ring in halls of eternity itself.

I thank you Lord for the quiet but I think You more for the noise of a life filled with the blessings of children and service in Your name.