Forward

He doesn’t know it yet, but he was literally standing on the edge of something.

The water going still and gold in front of him. The sun dropping low over a mountain that’s watched sixty summers of boys grow up on this very lake before he ever took a breath. My son just stood there, watching the scene play out before him.

Camp closed this week. The cabins are empty and the dining hall has finally simmered down. Wisps of campfire smoke floating through the pines, the sound of hoarse voices from a summer of shouting choruses around the ring, the thrum of footsteps walking along the ancient paths—all of it packed up and put away until next June. Every year it ends the same way. The cars pull out, the doors close, and for a few days the whole place just lets out a long sigh.

And there stands my son, looking out over that classic view. You’re standing behind him, watching the back of his head, and he’s not turning to look at you. He’s looking out—forward to the far horizon. Something in him already knows it’s better to look ahead than behind.

I seem to have lost that instinct. I spend half my time looking over my shoulder at what just ended, what I could’ve done better, what others might’ve thought about me. But he doesn’t do that. He just turns toward whatever’s next.

A summer’s gone. He’s a little taller, talks a little more, sleeps a little less. Somewhere between May and now he stopped being a baby and started being a kid who runs down docks and points at boats and says, “Dada, look!” about fifty times a day. I didn’t see it happen. I just looked up one day and it had.

I don’t know what he’s going to be. I don’t know what he’ll carry from these summers at camp. Maybe it will be a nostalgic correlation between the smell of pine and summertime joys. Perhaps it will be the sound of the songs before a meal held in the dining hall. Or maybe it will be photos of him and his mom basking in the sun at the waterfront. I don’t know what he’ll do with any of it.

But I know who’s writing the story. And I’ve got a front row seat to watch God grow this boy into whatever he’s calling him to be—one summer, one sunset, one turn toward the horizon at a time.