Last weekend, we headed down to Cape Disappointment State Park in the very southwest corner of the state. Don, Nancy and Megan had a campsite for their trailer and Logan, Tyla, Elijah and I stayed a short walk away in a tent site.
This was only Elijah’s second camping trip in the tent and he did great! He went to bed around 9:30 every day (about 1.5 hours later than normal) and slept solidly all night until pretty far into the morning. It definitely gave me confidence to do some more trips with him.
The park itself was really nice. The beach was huge, sandy and perfectly positioned for beautiful sunsets. There are a lot of other parks nearby and we went across the bridge into Oregon to check out the 1906 shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park.
The only major bummer of the trip was traffic. We left at 2pm on Friday for the 3.5 hour drive. It took us 5.5 hours (plus 30 minutes of stops) to get there. We only hit an extra 30 minutes of traffic on the way back but it all came in one big messy accident backup.
I was very impressed with the camera on our Galaxy S7’s. All of the pictures you see below were taken on our phones except for the shipwreck. It’s gotten to the point where I feel less and less of a need to lug the big dSLR around with us. It still has its uses, but I don’t feel nearly as bad as I used to if I forget to bring it along.
A huge thanks goes out to Don for doing all the heavy lifting when it came to meal times!
Heaven
Who knows what really goes on in the mind of a four year old, but he seems to be taking this all in stride. For the past couple months, I’ve been preparing Elijah for the death of his grandma. He knew she was sick and we talked about how some day she wouldn’t be around anymore. That was hard for him to understand, but what he did understand that she was going to join Jesus in heaven. There have been a number of times when he has walked over to a crying family member, stood there quietly and said, “It’s ok. She’s with Jesus now.” Oh the faith of a child!
We are all comforted knowing that Nancy is in heaven right now. There are still a lot of tears as we come to grips with the fact that we’re not going to see her again here on earth, but the separation is temporary because we’ll be reunited in heaven. Nancy knew that she was a sinner and deserved only God’s wrath and punishment. But when Jesus died on that cross 2000 years ago, he paid for her sins and she believed that. The Bible says that anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. It really is just that simple. Heaven is our free gift and requires zero effort on our part (thank goodness because I know I’d screw it up if any of it depended on me!) Reject that message and the result is much different.
If you’re in the area, you’re welcome to attend the funeral on Friday at 3pm at Calvary. Don’t expect to hear how Nancy was “a great person” or other common funeral quotes. Instead, you’ll hear something like what I wrote above: Nancy was a sinner like all of us, but when she died and stood before the judgement seat, God declared her not guilty, not because of anything she had done, but because Jesus had already paid the debt for her sins and she believed that.