I’ll admit it was a slight concern of mine as we agreed to go on trek. I envisioned late night giggling sessions, maybe some drama past bedtime, requisite late night talks. I fade come ten and I know from living with teens that they don’t. And so I worried about being the boring adult leader and how on earth I’d manage to get enough sleep as we headed out on our journey.
You know how it is when you’re camping. Sleep’s not the greatest, at least not the first night. But by night two you’re so dog-tired from bad sleep and hiking and being in fresh air that usually you do just fine.
This was night two. After hearing we’d be getting up at 4:30 the following morning before our 15 mile hike, I knew we’d want to get to bed at a reasonable hour and get a good night’s sleep. But the meeting was long, we re-grouped later than planned, and we got to bed past my tired point. I was doing as well as can be expected on the tent floor in a sleeping bag with a pillow the size of woopie cushion until I heard a faint plea from the next tent over calling for me. Our little 11 year old “daughter” wasn’t feeling well. It took me a minute to ascertain that I was the adult in charge and that I needed to wipe the sleep from my eyes and report for duty. Usually Todd takes the night shift (and I do early mornings), but in this case I needed to be the ma. So I ruffled the still of the night by very loudly unzipping our tent and perching myself outside of hers. Her stomach was unsettled (my least favorite type of upsets) and so I asked if she was nervous about our big hike in the morning. No. I had Tums, would that help? She’d already taken some. Would she like me to go to the bathroom with her? Sure. We’d somehow secured the farthest site from the outhouses possible, so we trundled ourselves slowly onward, dodging tent ties along the dusty Wyoming prairie en route to relief. I was shocked by how chilly the night had become from when I’d gone to bed just hours (minutes?) before. And how dark it was. We replayed that scenario one other time that night and I was grateful I had the presence of mine to grab my coat for waiting at the bathrooms that time. Things seemed to settle down from that point and before we knew it, I was up for the third time in the dark, this time packing up tents and breaking camp, relieved we’d made it through the night without throwing up or serious repercussions.
I jotted down this night in my little paper journal they handed out to us because I wanted to remember what it felt like.
As I peeked my head out of our tent that very first time, I was still a little groggy to be honest. But as I pulled myself together, I couldn’t help but be swallowed up in the night. I was overcome as I stood up and then walked silently with my little friend and my small stream of light through the dark. I was pulled to the sky. But the sky seemed to be touching the ground. I was surrounded.
Earlier that evening we’d spent some time with our little family taking in the night sky. We pointed out constellations we each knew and talked quietly in the dark for a long time. And how one of the most amazing things is to be on a still lake on a night like this because the stars reflect in the water and it feels like you’re living in the middle of all of them.
The night continued its gift as we took our little jaunts to the outhouses and it took my breath away while I waited for my little friend. Everywhere I looked there were tiny pinpricks of light, stars—and who knows what else—absolutely surrounding me. It was the most spectacular sight I’d ever seen. I’d never been in such complete dark enabling me to see so much of the sky lights, and I was blown away. I thought of what Mitchell (my 17 year-old son) and I had been talking about just the other night.
Together, all the galaxies in the visible universe contain an estimated 30 billion trillion stars. Yet that number may be a small fraction of all there are. Evidence suggests that we can see only about 5 percent of all there is (the rest is “dark matter” and “dark energy,” so called because it can’t be seen or detected directly by the instruments we have). The universe, in fact, may be infinite in size. And God controls it all. (R. Val Johnson, “Worlds Without Number,”)
How many earths are there? I observed this morning that you may take the particles of matter composing this earth, and if they could be enumerated they would only be a beginning to the number of the creations of God; and they are continually coming into existence, and undergoing changes and passing through the same experience that we are passing through (Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, 14:71).
I couldn’t help but think of God and all His creations. That each speck of light represented a star or a planet or even a galaxy. It made me think back to that morning on the bus when I’d prayed for help finding my contact after I’d put all my stuff away and rustled my apron and been moving for awhile. I knew He’d help me because I’d need to see during the trip, so I asked in faith knowing He’d come through. Immediately I looked down and there it was safely balanced on the edge of my apron just calmly waiting for me to pick it up. I juxtaposed that memory with the one I was imprinting at the moment and was humbled. I knew everything I knew about God was true, He is real, I felt it deeply.
This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it (President Uchdorf*).
Even with all His spectacular powers, His intelligence, His omniscience, I know He knows me. And each of His children. Just as we do ours. He wants to be in our lives, to help us. I know and feel that He loves us. Not just as a collection of people, but as individuals. I’ve had so many insights and experiences that have cemented that in my heart and I know for sure it’s true. I loved that quiet time alone to feel that again.
Later that night, when we went to the bathroom again a little before the camp wake-up, I was intrigued by the intermittent lights now amid the tents where the road had been completely dark just hours before. I noticed how much easier it was to see, even though the sun hadn’t begun to rise; it was just the small lights from each family illuminating the tiny area around them just a bit that helped us see where we were walking.
I loved the obvious symbolism of the dark world. Even on the quiet plains of Wyoming with no one but coyotes around, I found it all a little disconcerting walking with just my 11 year-old friend and flashlight for comfort. But on this last jaunt of the night, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful as I thought about what these lights represented. Each person—as tiny as her light was—contributed to my overall feeling of peace and confidence. I thought about how insignificant we think our influence is, how little impact we think we’re making, how I bet we don’t even notice we have a light at all. But it took contrasting those small rays of light with the heavy shroud of darkness to witness how powerful each of us is—even on our own. It wasn’t as if I needed everyone to crowd together in one area to provide enough light for our walk home, I just appreciated the tiny lights along the way, each person standing in place, doing his own work for the day ahead. Each light contributed to the illumination of our path. What a great metaphor.
It was just a glorious night of simple reminders that I think I’ll always reflect back on. I think most of all it reminded me to stop and be quiet more often. To pay attention to the truths embedded in me. To really think about what I feel. To look up. Most of all to remember. I think that’s what the trek was all about. I just feel incredibly blessed to have had one night alone with my thoughts on the plains, far away from distractions and the normal commotion in my head so that he could teach me and remind me of what I've always known.
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