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A Camping Trip Full of Memories and Lessons
- hollifry
- 11 minutes ago
- 4 min read
My husband and I have recently returned from a two-week camping trip in Colorado. This is a trip we enjoy every few years as each of our grandchildren reaches the age of sixteen. We take them to Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, Colorado, drop them off for camp, and return there two weeks later to bring them back home.
During the two weeks that they are at camp learning about Christian worldview, we enjoy a glorious tent-camping experience in the amazing state parks of Colorado.
I want to share some of the highlights of this trip with you, but how does one begin to talk about a trip so full of depth and wonder?
Perhaps I should begin with the obstacles.
Unforeseen Challenges
This year was a bumper year for qualified participants. We had three grandchildren who turned sixteen, a seventeen-year-old grandson who had waited a year in order to go on the trip with this group of cousins, and a close family friend who just turned sixteen and wanted to come along as well.
Our van was loaded to the hilt with a host of happy teenagers and their luggage, our camping supplies, and our two bikes strapped on the back. We had traveled almost as far as Lubbock, Texas, when, quite unexpectedly, while sitting still at a traffic light, we were rear-ended, causing significant damage to our van and destroying our bicycles.
Our first thought was that the van was too far gone to continue, but finding a large enough rental van on a Saturday afternoon in small-town USA proved impossible, and we knew we HAD to get these teens to Colorado! However, once we determined that the van was drivable, the only serious concern was the smashed back window. Our grandsons jumped into action and patched up our rear window so we were able to keep going. These young men did such a fabulous job that this repair held up for the entire two-week trip through serious winds, rain, and even hail.
The bicycles, on the other hand, truly were totaled. Our first thought was that we would have to take hikes rather than bike rides, which would significantly change our enjoyment of the trip, but then we realized we could buy new bicycles and save the receipts for the insurance company just as easily in Colorado as in Texas, so we went to the nearest Trek bicycle shop after dropping off the kids and bought new bikes!
These problems solved, we were now ready for our wonderful Colorado State Parks adventure.
Glorious Sights
And what an adventure it was! Everywhere we turned, there were amazing sights that took our breath away, including incredible mountain vistas, regal wildlife, and fascinating sites of historical interest.
However, instead of focusing on either of these aspects of our trip, I would like to share with you a tiny tidbit of knowledge that I gleaned from a park-ranger tour, and perhaps you will enjoy sharing this with your children in the process of teaching them to appreciate the wonder of God's creation.
This small detail is only one of millions of facts from nature that speak of the greatness of our God and his creative genius. I'm going to call this illustration "Two Unassuming Pine Cones."
Two Unassuming Pine Cones
In the photo at right, you see two pine cones that look radically different from one another. Yet these are both produced by the same variety of tree--the lodgepole pine.
Neither one is particularly remarkable in appearance, and you will not find either type at Hobby Lobby for sale as a Christmas decoration. The one on the left is not even cone-shaped and looks as if two-thirds of it broke off and got lost somewhere. The one on the right sports more of a proper cone shape, but it is soft and squishy, thus not at all acceptable as a decoration.
When I first heard these two very different cones came from the same variety of tree, my immediate thought was that one must be the male and the other the female. But that isn't the explanation.
These are two different kinds of seed cones, and the difference between them reveals an amazing provision for survival built into the lodgepole pine.
The small, hard cone on the left does what we normally expect a pine cone to do: It eventually opens, releases its seeds, and those seeds can produce new lodgepole pine trees.
But the other cone has a very different purpose.
This soft, resin-sealed cone can remain closed for years, patiently holding its seeds inside. When exposed to the intense heat of a forest fire, the resin seal melts and the cone opens, releasing its seeds onto the charred and barren ground, where it will then begin the glorious work of regeneration.
Think about that for a moment.
A forest fire can destroy hundreds or even thousands of acres of trees. The ordinary cones might burn up along with the forest, but these other resin-coated cones have been sitting on the trees, already equipped with a means of surviving the fire and releasing their seeds afterward.
They were prepared for a catastrophe that had not yet happened!
And they can remain viable for decades, waiting for the moment they are needed.
I found this fascinating fact to be reflective of the nature of God.
The tree doesn't suddenly develop a solution when disaster strikes. The provision is already there.
The cone is simply waiting.
How often do we face a difficult situation and wonder, How in the world is this going to work out? We don't know what the solution will be, but God does.
In the case of our car accident on the trip, we were stymied for a while trying to find a rental vehicle we could use but discovered all we needed were some black plastic, tape, and cardboard from the nearest Walmart.
Sometimes His provision is already in place long before we know we are going to need it.
Nature is full of examples of God's amazing handiwork and provision for the protection and continuation of His creation. Everywhere we look, we can find reminders of His wisdom and creativity.
We serve a mighty God.
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