Remember the Bull

The Bull

We just got back from an amazing vacation. We travelled from East Texas to New Mexico, to Colorado.  Our first stop on our trip out west was Glorieta, NM, an encampment Robin and I grew up going to for youth camp.  This time, we went to Family Camp, a camp put together by the people of Glorieta geared towards families as a whole.  It was amazing; there were tons of different outdoorsy things to do; like mountain biking, mountain scootering, archery tagging, and much, much more.  Every night we had worship, and every morning we had bible study and family time.  We made wonderful new friendships that I'm confident will last a lifetime.  They even snuck in a date night for the parents.  It was truly one of the coolest experiences we, as a family, have ever been a part of.  I would undoubtedly advise anyone given the chance to go to Glorieta, go!  We grew closer as a family, and learned more so to trust God in all things.

On Thursday, they threw us a hootenanny of sorts, with tons of games, and BBQ, on the side of a mountain near a big red barn.  As I was walking around, keeping an eye and ear out for my children, I saw the coolest stick gun ever, simply a stick that had the perfect shape to be used as a pistol, and so I picked it up and put it in my pocket.  Daily at Family camp, we would have a craft to do with our children to help bring the lesson home.  This particular day, we had to create burden blocks.  Basically, we would write our worries, our concerns, and/or our burdens on this wooden block then carry it with us all day.  It was a symbol of how the things we senselessly worry about hold us back or weigh us down.  At the end of the hootenanny, there was a ceremony to burn our blocks, to represent giving our cares to God. Well my oldest gets attached to things quickly, especially if it is something he created.  So just like his drawings, he got attached to this block.  He all out refused to burn the block, to the point of almost making a scene, and it got worse, he didn’t want us to burn our blocks either.  I took a knee beside him, and told him that these blocks represent pain that is keeping us from our best.  Which reminded me of how WE as adults are with our burdens, as if to say we don’t want to give up our pain that we KNOW, in exchange for the future we don’t know. 

Sometimes it’s laziness that keeps us from our best but other times it’s fear.  Fear that we don’t know what’s next.  Fear that the next step will be hard, or take us out of our comfort zone.  With much reluctance, Dodge finally came to the fire pit. Away from the fire, I told him he didn’t have to throw it in, but that I really thought he should.  I threw mine in, and then Truett followed suit, as well as Robin.  Then I looked over and saw Dodge sitting closer to the fire, and could tell he was thinking about letting go.  So he looked at the fire, and went to toss the block, and the string caught his finger and the block went behind his head.  I thought for certain that was it, but he went, picked it up and tossed it in. I pulled him aside immediately and hugged him and told him how proud I was of him. You could tell he was upset, and then I remembered the AWESOME stick gun in my pocket.  I pulled it out and handed it too him.  I told him, “ This is The Bull, the gun that killed the evil mountain goat.” He grinned from ear to ear.  I then told him, Dodge this represents what happens when we give God our burdens.  He replaces it with good. 

It was an amazing object lesson, which happened in the moment.   Pretty cool how God works.  To finish out the week we had to come up with a family motto, so we painted, Trust God All Things, then off to the side, Remember the Bull.  I asked Dodge a couple of days ago, what that meant, and he told me that it represents that when we trust God in everything and give him the hard stuff, he’ll take care of us.

God is bigger than our burdens, and sometimes we don’t realize just what that means.  Until we fully realize that, we’ll never fully experience what God has in store. 

 Thank you Glorieta staff, and Josh Baker, y’all were a blessing!

Check them out at Glorieta.org.