The last week or so before we head off to Seesalt for the summer has this clockwork-like routine to it. Work like mad to get ready. Realize how much you still have to do in spite of months of preparation. Stay up late. Get ready to pack your life up for two months. This year has felt exactly the same with one exception: this is the last one for me.
Last fall after a lot of prayer and conversations, I realized that God was leading me elsewhere. It was the hardest decision that I have ever had to make. My parents started Seesalt and run the camp. It and its previous incarnations have been a part of every summer that I can remember. I have served on the program staff for 14 years; the last eight as Assistant Director. It is a ministry that I love deeply. I am proud of our small mom-and-pop indie camp that exists alongside denominational heavyweights with a great deal more funding. Seesalt and the relationships I have formed there over the years have shaped me in so many wonderful ways.
But after this summer, it is time to move on.
The one thing that I want to do is finish well. The trouble is endings are always tricky. Watch the end of an SNL skit fall apart. Witness the difficulty of concluding a long running TV series like How I Met Your Mother or Lost. Think about how many third parts of trilogies fail to meet expectations. It is a difficult thing to finish well. I am feeling that pressure. I’ve wanted the Bible studies and dramas that I have written for this summer to be the best that I have ever written; to be love letters to this place that has meant so much to me.
I don’t know if either the Bible studies or the dramas will be the best I’ve ever written (Come to Seesalt! This summer’s Bible study and dramas may not be the best ever written!). Yet I am trying to be at peace with the fact that the best I can do is to be present and give what I have. I don’t want to finish with fireworks and grandeur. A lot of students probably won’t even realize that I’m gone next summer. That’s okay. I just want to finish well.
For all of that, I would appreciate your prayers. For myself, EA (who has been doing this for nine years now), our boys, our staff, plus the students and adults whom we’ll be serving. For me, It’s going to be both a great and difficult summer. And it all starts tomorrow.