Those With Young: It Will Be Worth It All

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Romans 8:18

Camping-Gifford Style:

We aren't professional campers by any means. In fact, we realized, that we almost always camp with someone else that has a camper and knows what they are doing. So if we forgot something or have a question or some odd camping emergency, we have back up. But we've gone on our own a few times and have most of the necessary equipment.

On Friday after work, we began the packing process. The food was made and ready, but that was about it. I got off work about two and then headed to take family pictures for someone while Bill did some club repair (his third job). We finally got packed and ready and headed out about 6 p.m. to go try to find a camping spot without reservations.

Brilliant, right? We were partially unprepared simply because, hello, we are working several jobs right now and just don't have time to get ready for anything coming up on the weekend until the weekend.

But we weren't totally unprepared. Reservations are hard to come by around here this time of the year. You just "get what you get and you don't throw a fit." Your best option is to go early in the morning and claim a spot. But we were at work, so we couldn't just do that. We're not expert enough of campers to just go "x number of feet off the road" and rough it. I don't require much. I don't need electricity. I don't need running water (just clean water). I don't even need a shower. But I do require an actual toilet. A porta-potty will even do, but I am not squatting over a log. That is where my tolerance ends.

So anyway, we headed to our "first choice" campground, and they were full. So we then headed to our 2nd choice campground, and they were full. So we just started pulling through every campground we came to if they didn't already have a "full" sign out on the road. Nothing had a space available. Nothing. About this time, it is 8 p.m. The kids are starving. The chicken marinating in the cooler is obviously not being grilled that night. We really didn't have any vacation money. That is why we were camping. But we were determined that there was no way we were heading back home. We needed this break, and we needed it bad.

So we starting stopping at motels. It was getting dark. No. rooms. available. anywhere! We stopped at the next town and checked for rooms. They assured us there wasn't anything in North Idaho. Anywhere. We ate McDonalds. sigh.

We drove on to the next town. I was crying at this point, softly, to myself. My husband was sleeping. I kept asking God why we couldn't get a break. Why can't we just have one camp sight? One hotel room? One little weekend break from life? We're so tired. Not just sleepy. Our family is raveling at the seems and we need to rest and bond.

We stopped in the next town where they assured us there weren't any rooms between there and Libby, Montana. We kept driving. About 1 in the morning, Montana time (we changed time zones), we pulled into a little campground that didn't have a gate across it. They had two spaces. We grabbed one, threw two brave boys in a quickly accessible, one-man, pop-up tent while the rest of us slept in the van.

This was not the glorious getaway I had in mind.

In the morning, however, we begin to explore this place we had randomly ended up. We met other campers that told us what the local attractions were and where we really needed to take the kids.

It turned out that we had ended up in the best place ever - we would have never intentionally gone that far if it had gone according to our plan. We would have been at the campground closest to home with familiar surroundings.

God begin to speak to me in that moment. "Angela, that is where I have the Giffords in life right now. Your journey has been long and hard and lasted much longer than you would like. But I'm telling you, it will be worth it because your present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in you when it is all over. You will like the place I take you."

Wow!

So do you want to see where He took us?