This season was the busiest in recent memory. Our church just began building an addition to our facility. Though excited about breaking ground, I sensed the construction was adding bricks to a growing wall between my family and me.
My wife, Cheryl, and I lamented how detached our family had become. The kids filled their days in the isolated world of television. And the growing numbers of people at church were tyrannizing my calendar. A new youth pastor, youth camps, additions to buildings, new member classes, Bible studies, discipleship, visits … aaaahh!
I decided we needed to get away—to rescue our ministry from burnout and to retrieve our marriage from strain. We took our Sunday evening through Monday evening “day off” and journeyed to Willow Creek—the one in Beaverhead National Forest, not the one in Illinois. A day and a half to find our sense of family again. No phones, no computers, no people, and no TV.
S’more family time
The first indication of the Lord’s blessing on our trip was our cell phone’s “no service” message flashing at us. The drive through a narrow canyon back to Hollow Top Mountain not only separated us from 21st century communications, it took us to South Willow Creek, where the water is so clear you can read the date off a dime five feet deep.
We set up a tent for Cheryl and me, and one for our daughters, Madison and Baylee, and our son, Hayden, whom we affectionately call “Spartacus.” With tents pitched, we started a fire that would keep us company into the wee hours of the morning.
After the last s’more was consumed (defined as the one that makes you sick), it was bedtime. We wedged the kids into sleeping bags, prayed with them, left them a flashlight, and assured them that bears slept at night (and that dad sleeps with his 12 gauge, just for kicks). They giggled for 20 minutes and fell asleep. Then Cheryl and I settled into our lawn chairs and warmed ourselves by the fire.
It was an intimate fire, painting itself in shifting subtleties of blues, which is nice for looking at stars. When you are 50 miles from town and several thousand feet high, it becomes more of a challenge to find sky than stars. It looked like God had spilled a pouch of diamonds on the floor of heaven, and we sat bedazzled by the sparkle on the ceiling of Earth. It is easy to feel small sitting beneath the theater of the heavens.
It’s also easy to blather on about everything you haven’t talked to your wife about for months, or years. And blather we did—for hours. Each new log seemed to give us a new topic and the creek provided background music. Our conversations started small, carved through perspectives, poured into larger topics, got obscured in unrelated issues, and eventually wound back to the starting point. It was effortless, unlike conversations at home, where the words have to be pried from our mouths like bad teeth. Here, they flowed like the melted snow behind us.
Fishers of children
The next morning, we took the children to seek the native Cutthroat trout.
The thrill of catching the trout wasn’t coaxing them from beneath the turbulent pocketwater or how readily they took a #12 PartridgeWinkle. The thrill of catching these fish was watching my kids reel them in.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such honest expressions of wonder and excitement on their faces as when they took the rod from my hand and realized there was something on the other end. It’s better than Disneyland.
Seven-year-old Madison lunged toward me from the bank to be the first one to reel in a fish. She slipped on a rock and struggled to catch her breath in the frigid water. But when she hoisted the Cut from the water, she gave it a kiss. Hayden stared at the little trout he caught and giggled like he had met a new friend.
Five-year-old Baylee and I shared a serendipitous moment that passed as quickly as it came. Our first six casts together each yielded a fish. I hooked them and she played them like a master, holding her rod tip high and reeling slowly. She stood like a mini-Hemingway commanding a mini-whale. She has potential.
But potential won’t get you the 12-inch Cutthroat I stuck on the last cast. Whenever a trout rolls under the surface after being hooked instead of running, you take a Lamaze-style cleansing breath, sanctify yourself, and prepare for the challenge. This one rolled.
The fish lept, trying to fly away. It turned downstream, hoping to use the power and speed of the current to break away. It raced upstream, attempting to find enough slack to shake loose from the #12.
I felt the shock, heard the anger, battled the determination, sensed the panic, and responded to the fish’s resignation in succession.
What a fish! He rested in the palm of my hand, his spotted tail slapping my forearm, his orange fins trying to swim through the air. I showed him to Baylee. She gave him a kiss. I gave him a kiss too, and we let him go.
Twelve inches doesn’t seem like much. But on a high mountain stream the width of a few sidewalks, underneath a canopy of pines, a 12-inch fish is a Titan. The disciples can keep the 153 fish caught on the Sea of Galilee; give me one 12-inch Cutthroat at 6,500 feet.
Let’s stay, Dad
We walked back to camp, weaving our way through the ancient growth of pine trees and soft carpet of decaying pine needles. Baylee said with her typical enthusiasm, “We’re great fisherman, aren’t we, Dad?”
“We sure are, Bayls,” I said.
“We really knocked ’em dead, didn’t we, Dad?”
“We sure did, Bayls.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she said.
Those were the sweetest words I think I’ve ever heard. I would never have imagined the treasure stored in a simple day off. Not that I haven’t taken one before, but I haven’t used one like that in a long time. I realized once again the pleasure of my family and found refreshment for my ministry.
Jesus made a habit of getting away from the multitudes. I think He knew the blessings found in time away. Sometimes the best way to minister to others is to get away from them. Sometimes the best way to enjoy our families is to get away with them. It doesn’t take a conference; it doesn’t require money. All it takes is a simple day off.
Steve Van Winkle pastors Fellowship Baptist Church in Bozeman, Montana. felbap@aol.com
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