Jesus Becomes More to Me Every Day

A couple of years ago I visited what used to be Crenshaw’s Day Camp. It’s closed now but for several decades it was the place to be as a kid in the summer. The camp included about one hundred yards of waterfront on Lake Austin. I attended Crenshaw’s in Austin, Texas (where I grew up) every summer from the time I was six until I was thirteen. This place was heaven for a kid like me who lived in a trailer park with a single mom. Horses, water skiing, archery, riffle shooting ranges, hiking, gymnastics, trampolines, kayaks, canoes, fishing…everything a kid could want to do, this place had it. And, it was HUGE! At least I thought it was until I stepped out of my car that beautiful spring day a few years ago at the age of thirty five.

I parked in front of the old Crenshaw house that marked the official entry into what I always thought of as the “Disney World of Texas.” But, the first thing I noticed was that everything was so….SMALL! I have very clear memories of walking down the HUGE driveway beside the house to get to the locker room where each camper put their towel, sandals, and lunch money. I also remember the ENDLESS sprint from the picnic tables outside of the locker room down to the water front. I figured when I would race my buddies to the water’s edge to be first in line for skiing that we were easily running half a mile, maybe more. I even remember the BIG hill where they built the riffle hut out of cedar poles. The hut was so big that three of us at a time could lock and load our .22 riffles and take aim at the targets way down at the bottom of “bullet valley.”

The HUGE driveway beside the house was now only seven feet from top to bottom. The half mile distance from the locker rooms to the water front was no more then a hundred yards now. Did the shores of Lake Austin erode that much? And the riffle hut…I couldn’t get under the cedar roof of the hut without hunching over and it seemed as though someone had filled in “bullet valley” with dirt because the bottom of the valley was only thirty feet down.

How could everything have possibly shrunk so much! My larger than life memories had been accosted by the reality of a grown man’s sensibilities. What a tragedy, I thought to myself as I began to cry. The only thing that had actually changed was the fact that my eyes were approximately thirty inches higher than they were when I was thirteen years old. How could such a small change in my perspective have such a massive and devastating impact on the way I remembered my “Disney World?”
If only I had chosen not to stop that day. If only I would have driven past the entrance to the camp. Then the grandeur of my memories would still be, well…GRAND! But, they are different now. Life is a little bit smaller, less magical. I lost a tiny bit of the child in me who still fights for survival in the midst of this sinful and decaying world.

For some reason this whole camp experience came to mind a few days ago when I was thinking about Christmas. I thought of another wonderful childhood memory. I remember waiting all day long each December day for my grandmother, who lived next door, to let me open the window of the Christmas calendar she bought me every year. Each day there was a tiny little picture of a Christmas tree or a dove. The best night though was Christmas Eve, when she would let me open two windows; one for Christmas Eve and the last one for Christmas Day. There He would be – the little Christ child lying in a manger. So, small was the picture that I had to look very carefully to see the baby’s face.

As a little boy, I wasn’t a follower of the Christ child. Although I was elated each Christmas to open the final window to see the picture of the Christ child, I had no idea who he really was or what, if anything, he could offer me. But, ironically enough, unlike my camp experience, everything about that little Christ child has grown larger, more immense since I chose to follow the God-man who was symbolized by those half inch pictures on all those Christmas calendars. The great irony is that as the world gets smaller, experiences become less surprising, the wonders of life become, well, less wondrous with age, I can honestly say that Jesus keeps surprising me, inspiring me, becoming larger than life and then larger again! Unlike my memories of camp as a child, Jesus continues to burst on to the scene of my life each new day and his grandeur overshadows the wonderful memories I had of him only the day before. He is more loving, more caring, more giving than I remember.

What an awesome God we serve.

May your experience of Christ this Christmas be more immense, more intense, more breathtaking than the Christmas before.