"Camping for dummies...."

Thanks, ya'll for the comments...keep 'em coming!

Last night, Tim and I let the boys sleep outside in the backyard because our house was severely impacted by the summer.....TOO HOT! With great excitement and anticipation, the two boys (age 10 and 9) set up their humble tent and blankies, complete with Archie Comics, bug spray, and water. They were scurrying around like mice trying to make their "camping" experience more comfortable. I handed them flashlights and went over some important rules for sleeping in the yard such as "YOU MUST SLEEP" and "no yelling or screaming as we don't want the neighbors to complain".

Then I gave room for questions.....their hands shot up slicker than snot! (they still raise their hands even when hanging out with me!) They asked, "When are YOU coming out to sleep?"

"Me? I thought you guys wanted to sleep out here all by yourselves."

"No way! Too scary! You GOTTA come out here, too!" they answered in great protest.

"Oh, here we go." I thought. Tim and I don't usually go to bed until 1 am or so and we don't usually sleep OUTSIDE. But we agreed to come out later in the evening....they had asked if we would set up a baby monitor outside next to their tent so that we could hear them and made us promise to sleep only a few feet away from them. But I thought, "for sure these guys are gonna want to come in soon...there's no way they'll be able to sleep out here......just wait until they have to pee.....then they'll come inside for good."

When 1 am came along, the boys were fast asleep...they didn't even notice when we laid down our sleeping bag and jostled around them to get comfy. The boys slept until the sun brightened the sky at 5 am...like an alarm clock, they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5 AM!!....I didn't sleep a wink the whole night....there was a skinny, smelly stray cat with skin issues that kept trying to come and sleep on my pillow and then would try and go into the kids' tent, too! I had to fight him off several times!!!....yucky....kept me WIDE awake. But being awake all night wasn't a complete loss....I got to thinking about these two boys and how insistent they were that we sleep within a few feet of them and how important it was that we could hear them through the baby monitor....they had me test it out like 10 times just to make sure!

It made me think of how much I need Jesus to be right next to me....even when I'm having fun and I'm doing something exciting or out of the ordinary. Just like these boys so confidently set up their tent and tried to be grown up in their strategic planning of how to set up their masterpiece, but at the end of it, they needed me to sleep right next to them. They were desperate for it! They wouldn't sleep in their tent without me. I feel that way about Jesus...I need Him to stay awake all night and make sure that I'm safe as I sleep, I can't do anything without knowing He is there....I'm desperate for His presence even if it is a couple feet away from me....He fights off the evil stray cats in my life and half the time I don't even know it. Reminds me of Psalm 139:1-19, which says,

"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths (or outside!),
you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.When I awake, I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God!Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!" (or stray cats!)

I am so glad He loves me that much to stay with me all night.