Camp

Wow, I haven't blogged in way too long.

Okay, so camp is in two days. Sunday morning we will go to the church at 10:00 a.m., and begin our epic journey. As excited as I am, I'm having some fear issues. I know, I know, it's ridiculous for a seventeen year old to be scared of leaving home for a week. But all the same, I am.

It started about three years ago. We were traveling home from KC, and we witnessed a really bad wreck. I cannot tell you how much that has messed with me. Ever since then I've struggled with fear when taking trips without my parents. I've worried that when someone leaves the house, they might not come back. It has affected my driving very negatively. I can't tell you how many bad dreams I've had about crashing the car.

As long as I'm with Mom or Dad, I'm okay. But for some reason whenever I face being separated from them for any extended period of time, I'm afraid. Even if it's a good thing that I'll be gone for, like camp.

And don't get me wrong, I really really want to go to camp! I wanted to go to a camp last year. I prayed for it. I asked God for it. And I was super excited when Mom and Dad said yes! God totally brought this together. So why am I so afraid?

Then last night I had a dream. We, (the whole family, though Dad didn't really have an active role in the dream,) were at an amusement park and we were staying on this little platform thingy with no walls and only a roof that was attached way up high to the side of a building. It wasn't a ride, it was like our hotel or something only we were the only ones dangling midair. Weird, right?

It seemed completely normal in the dream and it was nearing the end of the day and Kathryn and I were trying to decided what to do with our last half hour. Devin had texted me and invited the two of us to hang out with him and the rest of the youth group somewhere in the park. Kathryn wanted to go, (of course, haha,) but I was a little more unsure. I wanted to make sure that Mom would be okay and for some reason in the dream, (I can't remember why, now,) I was afraid that something might happen to her if we left.

Then while we were still deliberating about it on our little platform, a red dragon came out of nowhere and shot flames at us a few times before flying off again. Completely weird, right?

Kathryn and I had just decided that we would go join up with the others and started to pray and ask God to keep us all safe, when the dragon came back, almost in retaliation to our prayer. We all ducked and scattered and I quickly said, "never mind!" meaning I didn't want to go. The dragon stuck it's head under our roof and we rebuked it, but it didn't leave right away.

It flew away and that's all I remember. Since it was so weird I thought it would be a good idea to tell Mom and Dad about it to see if they thought it had any spiritual parallels. Mom immediately hit the nail on the head and said that it probably represented some internal fears and doubts about the trip. Before that I hadn't talked about or really even admitted to myself that I was scared, but she was so right. And the first step to getting over something is to admit it.

Anyway, so if you happen to think about it, pray for me. I'm sure that I'll be okay and that everything will be great because, hey, God is good! I'm just having a little trouble getting there. Writing about it helps a lot though. =)