Update: I just went back for a year of speaking at Bay Shore. It was a different role than I’ve ever played there but the result was the same. I’m coming back into my ministry refreshed, focused and amplified for my love of the Gospel. I’ll never forget the staff of 2017. I’ll never forget Jason. And I’ll never, ever forget about what the Gospel did this week! Bay Shore forever.
Original post: I thought I would scribe a small note to keep you all posted on my life and hopefully entice some of the thought paradigms of you, the faithful readers. I just got done with my last week (tentatively) ever counseling at Bay Shore Camp in Sebawaing, MI. Their website is linked. I love that place.
For the last 15 years or so, I have been going to Bay Shore. Since I was old enough for basketball camp I have been stepping foot on one of the greatest camps, in my humble opinion, in the USA. On my last day, as I walked on Roberta’s walk toward one of the better sunsets I have had the privilege of seeing while at Bay Shore, I began to think to myself what it was about Bay Shore that I love so much. This is what I can conclude: I am not sure if it is the smell of sugar beets or the small town in which Bay Shore rests. I do not know if it is the atmosphere of that long drive down the road next to the sugar beet factory that is covered with woods on either side. I do not know if it is that moment that my heart skips a beat when I get to the stop sign at the railroad tracks and simultaneously find myself looking at Bay Shore just past the tree line. I am not sure if it is the dining hall, tabernacle, zip-line, family or youth center or even the cabins with wooden floors and old bunks made of either wood or metal that seem to creek regardless. I can rest in this fact however; Bay Shore is a very special place because there is just something about it. When you step foot on gas pedal and make your way past those railroad tracks and find yourself instantly calmed by the atmosphere almost as if you stepped into another dimension. Regardless of the beating of your heart or the outside world, you are there for one reason and one reason only, something has brought you here. There are a lot of reasons that people come to Bay Shore. Their camps are amazingly fun, their sports camps are fundamental and competitive and the memories are forever young, but the place holds a hollowness. It is as if God himself resides at Bay Shore from occasion just to relax.
I have seen many things in my day and felt very sentimental about a lot of things, but when my tears fell as I drove and looked at Bay Shore in my rear view mirror for possibly the last time, there was something that resounded in my heart as peace. Regardless of how the world changes and what happens in our lives, the Shore will always be there. Like a sanctuary in a troubling time, like a shelter to a storm, like a river running with water, or possibly like a north star in my skies, it never leaves, never dries, never misleads, and never fails.
Is it possible then, that the reason I love Bay Shore so much is because it has the attributes that God has for me?
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Food for thought: If you have a sanctuary that this post reminds you of, comment please with the sanctuary it is for you. Maybe it is Bay Shore, maybe it is something else. For a moment though, think about how great it is, and find peace that unlike things in our worlds that come and go, God, and quite possibly your place, will always be there no matter where you go.
leadershape 