Thursday, September 30, 2010

Pretend Camping by the Beach

our tent!
To start the school holidays a friend from work and I spent the first 3 days "camping" at the top of the cliff overlooking the ocean in Bonny Hills (near Port Macquarie).
The amazing view! (at 7am)

our delicious dinner (except the veggies... they were realllllllly gross)
Of course this was camping in the loose-est sense of the word... yes we stayed in a tent. But in a caravan park with toilets & hot showers, and although we cooked a few meals on the camp bbq, we also spent some time in town eating amazing sundaes and pancakes.
the yummy sundae

mmmm iced chocolate with pancakes for breakfast!

How amazing are the clouds?!

It was absolutely beautiful! The weather was PERFECT and we had the most relaxing time. Such a fantastic way to unwind from term 3. On the first night the moon was incredible. It was massive and orange and reflected in the ocean & was 'right outside' our tent. We seriously sat on our air mattresses staring across the Pacific just in awe of God. (My camera did not do this justice! It was amazing! trust me!)

The incredible orange moon (use imagination when viewing this one)

Chilling on the beach
This bird kept us entertained for ages


Our adventures included walking the length of the beach (it took around 3 hours), a rainforest walk, art gallery, lots of crazy shops, a visit to the sick and injured koalas at the koala hospital, napping, and I read a whole book. I actually read 'The Shack'. It's been on my list of books to read for ages (and a lovely friend lent it to me months ago...).

Here are a few of the things I learnt from my camping adventure and reading The Shack...
  • Nature wakes up way earlier than I like to
  • You can't boil water on a barbeque
  • I don't spend enough time outside
  • I don't watch enough sunsets (or sunrises for that matter)
  • Not much matters when you're laying on a beach or looking out at the ocean from on top of a cliff
  • Rainforest plants are really violent (just in real slow motion)
  • The ocean never stops (ok duh! I know this is obvious, but it actually overwhelmed me to think how many billions of litres of water were constantly churning in waves at the bottom of our cliff, I can't even fathom keeping the waves and tides sorted for one beach let alone the crazy billion-gazillion (really big number) beaches and cliffs and coasts around the world.
  • Relaxing is possible
  • Who cares if someone steals your juice
  • God loves
  • God's love is not conditional, even though it's so easy in my humaness to see it as conditional
  • God's love is not hierarchical
  • 'Truth' as seen by us is biased, flawed and too often ego-centric. What is true to me can change. God's truth does not change.
  • It's not my job to judge
  • Jesus' death changed everything
  • We have been designed to live in community with God and each other
  • Sometimes even the 'good stuff' in our lives needs to be removed for God to purpose something better
  • God is 'especially fond of me'

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