It Sounded Like a Good Idea by Shalene

Taking the last long weekend of the summer to go camping with my two youngest children and my husband sounded like a good idea. It sounded like a really good idea when my husband suggested it. Getting out of the 110 degree heat, having some quality family time, and communing with nature sounded like so much fun! We used to do it all the time, but have since quit doing it so much, and I missed it.

So, I scrambled around for 3 hours getting all our camping gear together, clothes and food for the weekend, and even packed a little extra in case we wanted to stay more than one night. I had such high hopes. I didn't bother with the play yard, for the baby to sleep in, because I figured she would just sleep with us anyway, and I'd do just like I did at SWC when it came time for bed. It sounded like such a good idea.

I did take all four children to SWC with me at the beginning of August and it all worked out ok. Even my youngest's unnatural affinity for her crib worked out. (She will be two in a week, and unlike my other three children, she has not yet even attempted to climb out of it. She has issues sleeping anywhere else.) While we were at SWC, I just laid down next to her on the air mattress, or rocked her to sleep in my arms, and there were no problems.

Last night was not quite so easy. You see, my back hurt from carting around and moving stuff in my garage to get to the camping gear, and just doing stuff to it that a woman my age shouldn't do. :) So I wasn't able to hold her 30 lb baby body for long to rock her to sleep (I have to do it standing up- we don't have a rocking camp chair.) :) So I laid her down after rocking her for as long as I could stand it. I laid down with her in the hopes that it wouldn't be too long before she was asleep. She did seem very close, you see. And it sounded like a good idea.

What didn't sound like a good idea, was listening to her screech for the next 2 1/2 hours! Yes, that's how long it took before she was asleep. And then again two hours later when she woke up. And again about an hour after that. I don't know what the problem was but that kid just would not sleep. This was one of those moments when my husband would have sworn that she was possessed. :) With the wailing and then playing and then hitting in play that ended with my husband almost having a black eye, we were so very tired by the time 7:00 am arrived and she wasn't having anymore of the nite- nite time. So essentially our camping trip consisted of us getting to our destination, setting up the tent and beds, building a fire, eating dinner and a scream filled night. We also had to contend with being cold, because we donated all the warm blankets to my 5 year old since she didn't have anyone else's body heat to keep her warm. Our body heat didn't do much good either, since we were severely lacking in any by the time morning came. We decided that we would rather not spend another night up there, and that we would rather all of us slept in our own beds tonight. So we're back.

I did have a realization on this trip though. And that is that unbelievers are much like a sleepy 2 year old, and believers are much like the parents of the same two year old. When a believer shares their faith with the unbeliever, at first it is a bit amusing when the unbeliever fights it. And then the believer gets a little frustrated because the unbeliever just doesn't understand how good it would be for them to just listen and believe. Finally, sometimes, the believer may just want to throttle the unbeliever for their lack of ability to see that it is for their own good. I just pray that for all the unbelievers I meet, that even if I get to that point, that I won't give up and we'll all go peacefully to Heaven together at some point. Now that sounds like a good idea.