Girls Camp Sucks and I'm not even there.

I've been wanting to blog, but I haven't. A persistent funk has followed me for months. It's blocking my ability to do normal stuff. So I have a sticky note with a list of 20 blog posts. I hope I get back to them, but who knows.

But this...I have to blog this because there is no one here to talk to.

Grace is at girls camp. I hate girls camp. I hated going and I now hate sending someone. Ok, hate is probably too strong a word, but I'm not reveling this experience.

I'm sure she's fine, because I have faith. We've prayed a lot. She had a blessing. She's a strong, awesome kid. She's got great leaders.

But I still feel a faint sickness trying to take hold of me. The fear creeping in to steal my faith. Mostly I just want to drive up there and see with my own eyes that she's happy.

She's been very excited to go to camp. 12 is all grown up and free. She wants to hang out and be with friends, so the thought of going up for a week of fun was thrilling. But there's the nighttime thing. Grace has two nighttime setting - unconscious or panicked. There's no "huh, I'm not very sleepy..." there is only "I CAN'T SLEEP. I'LL NEVER FALL ASLEEP. HELP ME. MY WORLD IS ENDING!!!!"

She's usually asleep before her head touches the pillow, but when she's not she's got zero coping mechanisms. She cries and worries and it drags on for at least an hour, but which time I'm usually very short tempered and ready to shoot her with a poison dart.

She battles her panic by listening to her music and for the most part, that works. But there is no technology at girl's camp. Which means no ipods. Which means no music.

Grace has worried for months about falling asleep at girl's camp. She has laid in bed and cried more nights than I can count. We've had good talks. We've talked about praying for peace and comfort and having faith that the Lord will help you. We talked about why we do hard things and how it builds testimony. I told her a story about receiving help from the Lord and bore a simple testimony. That seemed to really resonate, but the night before leaving she still cried for hours.

Finally we got her out of bed and Chad gave her a blessing, after which she feel asleep in less than 5 mins.

I know she will be fine. No one ever died from homesickness. (Being eaten by a bear, well that's another story, but I digress.) But even though I know she's fine, I worry. I don't want her to be in pain or scared or sad. I want peace for her and there's not one thing I can do.

Well that's not entirely true. About 11 PM last night, knowing camp was lights out at 1030 and thinking she'd be firmly in the midst of a can't-fall-asleep-crisis I found myself on the verge of tears. I laid in bed and felt so sick to my stomach, so I crawled out and feel to my knees. I pleaded with the Lord once more for peace for that lovely child. I didn't experience any miracle, at it still took me 2 hours to actually go to sleep, but I have faith in the prayers of a mother to help her child. When there's nothing left you can personally do, you can always pray.

So I sit her with baited breath, counting the minutes to Friday. And praying. Because that's the only tool left in my arsenal.


UPDATE: She did awesome. She loved it. She slept pretty well. She made new friends. She came home really dirty, but convinced she didn't need a shower. Someone put a jedi braid in her hair, which I'm pretty sure she will never take out. She told me the only time she cried was testimony meeting. :)