We all know the feeling: you’re antsy and on the edge of your seat waiting for camp registration to open. You want your kid to get in to youth camp. You want to take your family to LLFC for a week.
Now, if you were a 70’s or 80’s camper, chances are you leisurely mailed in your camp registration. In the 90’s demand increased a tad, so the faraway cities would designate one warrior mom to drive the applications and checks to Kerrville. This sounds die hard, but my name, address and cabin mate request form was among the stack that drove four hours from Corpus Christi to the camp office the moment the doors opened, just to be admitted.
Once you’re on staff, you kind of forget about this frenzy and heated demand for a camper slot. You graduate from staffing into adulthood and think the stress is behind you. Then, before you know it, you are in your thirties trying to register your own family for LLFC. This is stage one in parenting registration; a little warm up for when the kiddos can be individual campers themselves. The countdown clock taunts you and then you quickly do what you must before clicking submit. And then you see that terrible word staring back at you: WAIT LIST.
It’s like a punch in the stomach. No. It can’t be. How can I possibly have a summer where I’m not spending an extended period of time in the Canyon. I want it. Nay, I need it. The funniest part is that we adults (should we just be called large campers?) get selective about our sessions, too! So we don’t get 3rd Session and we start pouting. Our inner 9-year-old stomps her foot, “Well, if I can’t go 3rd Session, maybe I don’t want to go at all. It’s not the same 4th Session. I mean, what about my San Angelo friends!!! I may never see them again!!!!”
Breathe.
In the end, you usually get in. Sure, you may have to miss a summer here and there (sometimes even give up your spot because of an unexpected surgery or thing you’d prefer not to talk about), but you will go back. You will experience summer in the Canyon; it may just look different than you imagined. There is room for everyone and maybe we should trust that God is ultimately filling all the slots. After all, He does know who should be where and when.