Living In A Tent

I went on a retreat a few months back with my husband's family's church. It was a lot of fun, in the mountains, rustic, you know. The camp we went to is one of my favorites, one I went to a lot growing up, so it was kind of like a homecoming, even though I didn't know a lot of the people there.

The speaker, a former pastor of the church, talked about living in tents. His whole meaning was that God calls us to live in tents (figuratively speaking, of course), that in our lives we're not supposed to plant deep roots in our present life, but to live in a tent so we're ready to pack up and go as soon as God calls us to move.

I did a lot of thinking about this particular concept - living in a tent. And I decided/realized that I'm not living in a tent. I'm not living anywhere. I've got my tent packed and ready to go. I'm so anxiously awaiting the next thing in my life, that my tent has never had its stakes in the ground.

This idea of living in a tent has come back to me many times since this particular retreat. It seems every time I start unpacking my emotions and thinking about putting down roots in the present, God calls me to be prepared to move. And then just when I get everything packed up again, God tells me to settle down and continue setting up camp. Living in a tent. It's an emotional rollercoaster, I tell ya. But it's kind of exciting. It keeps things interesting. What's going to happen today? Is today a day of packing and moving? Or is today a day of settling? And, you know, no matter which I wake up thinking it is, it usually turns out to be the other.