My bed felt strange.
First off, you need to know that I love my bed. When my wife and I married, we brought two sets of furniture that had been acquired over a combined two decades of life on our own into a single relationship. Wisely, most of what we each brought with us was replaced with our things. The living and family room furniture are Eric and Trisa’s. The dining room table and chairs have been replaced twice, as the size and proximity of our family has ebbed and swelled. The large hutch on the wall in the main room was bought with the money we received as wedding gifts. But we kept my bed.
It’s a great queen mattress, medium-firm, very thick and high. Trisa says she has to be very careful when buying sheets because not all queen sheets are made alike; evidently some do not quite fit. It’s been a comfort on the occasions when my back has felt like it was going to explode. It even fits our dogs with us, and just because they’re small, don’t think they take up only a small amount of room. You’d be surprised how much of a queen-sized bed a shih-tzu can command.
But last night was my first night home, after my week in Brownsville. Now, I had the double-decker-height single mattress. It was great. Pop the sleeping bag on top, lay down, and voíla! – do NOT land on the floor. It sure wasn’t my bed. Turning over on it is loud and sounds like a whoopee cushion firing. It was nowhere as supportive as my bed at home. And, of course, it was just me.
I have never slept so soundly for so many days in a row.
This past week, during a Red Shirt staff meeting, a very wise man said he was “afraid” because we had not seen Satan all week. The next night, I used the word “awash” for how I had felt all week. Physically drained, emotionally overcome, and feeling as full of the Holy Spirit as I ever have. God was so present He was almost tangible. I’m not sure I can explain it to someone who was not there – the words just will not do justice to the depth of what I have experienced.
I feel right now the way I felt after my first Promise Keepers conference, how I felt after my first Mission Trip with this youth group in 2004. This is a mountaintop experience. I am different. I am awash. Moses, descending from Mount Sinai after receiving the Ten Commandments and spending time directly with god, literally glowed from the experience (Exodus 34:29-34). That’s how I feel – glowing.
Out of place.
Can we just go back to workcamp?
No, of course we can’t just go back. Now, some of us will be called into mission as a vocation – and I will praise God for every one of you who is. But right here, right now, that’s not what and where most of us are supposed to be.
So, the question before the majority of us is, now: will we allow God to work through us at home as he did in Tennessee? Will we continue to glow now that we’ve come down off the mountain?