When we were kids, my sister and I would take a blanket to the kitchen, drape it over a couple of dining room chairs, pull the corners tight and hold them to the linoleum with the legs of the big table. Suddenly, we had a tent. We'd crawl in, giggling, and hide inside our cloth fortress. The interesting thing was, in the confinement of that small space, I felt a wonderful freedom. Perhaps it was the relief of being out of a parent's eyesight for a moment. Or, maybe, having walls of my own choosing made me sense a degree of my own free will. Whatever the reason, our tent was a symbol of liberty. And to this day, whenever those newfangled fiberglass tent poles come out of their bag and snap together in my hands, I feel an impending freedom. It's been with me through all these years.
Camping is so much more than bugs, blisters and bumpy beds.
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Then one day, many years later, something startling happened. Nathan and Heidi, very young at the time, dragged one of Annie's homemade bedspreads to our dining room and made their own "quilted cathedral of freedom."
I'm not certain I ever instructed them in the art of indoor camping. They probably had seen a picture of a campsite or an actual tent in their travels with us. I don't know. But without any prompting from me, they were kitchen camping.
Then the thought occurred to me, Maybe they are responding to some instinct that is born in every human being. It seems that the urge to wander off into a wilderness and find one's own place to dwell is innate and undeniable. Perhaps my kids were showing their own initial signs of a desire for independence. After all, look what happened to me several years after my first kitchen campsite. Here I am, living 425 miles from my parents' house, totally on my own.
So…if your little kids haven't yet dropped a blanket over a piece of furniture and made a tent, brace yourself…they will. And when they do, keep in mind that they're on their way out of your lives! It's just a matter of time.
For that reason, I decided to crawl inside the tent with Nathan and Heidi instead of just standing by and letting them quietly disappear over the hill of time. I wanted to show them that looking through a zip-open door can give us one of the most valuable views of life a person can have. I wanted them to know that camping is so much more than bugs, blisters, and bumpy beds. For example, camping is an opportunity to learn important lessons about contentment, cooperation, crisis, connecting, conversation and church.
— Steve Chapman
Adapted from A Look at Life From God's Great Outdoors, copyright © 1999 by Steve Chapman. Used by permission of Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Ore. All rights reserved.
Steve Chapman and his wife, Annie, are award-winning musicians who have taken their message of Christ-centered family to fans all over North America. Steve proclaims his enthusiasm for the gospel, for family and for hunting in A Look at Life From a Deer Stand (more than 100,000 copies sold), Reel Time with God, What a Hunter Brings Home and With God on a Deer Hunt. To read more about Steve and Annie's ministries, visit their Web site at www.steveandanniechapman.com.
