I love the month of June for the many topics she inspires.
High School graduation is a major one. Schools all across America will say good-bye this month to thousands of young people who are about to find out how good they have really had it.
Now I do know that not all young people have have it made as many have faced struggles that no kid should ever have to deal with. However, life is definitely about to change for many people. Saying good-bye to friends who have been there and helped you through some tough times and have laughed a thousand laughs with you is going to be very difficult.
Walking out of that school one more time, this time knowing that if you ever walk back in for any reason it will never mean what it has meant for the last few years.
There will be teachers who you owe a great deal to and others who you would like to unload on, but now they are in the rear view mirror.
So, to you, congratulations and Godspeed!
Then there is Father's Day. Woo hoo! Dads get their day! A new tie, a bag of kit kats and a home-made card. It's a great day! Maybe your favorite meal and definitely some "do-nothing" time.
Okay, that days over, next topic!
Summer officially starts. Hot days, rainy weekends, horse flies and grass to cut. Cook outs on the grill, days at the beach and longer periods of sunlight! Vacations, baseball and weddings. I always wondered why the most popular month of the year for weddings, where everyone seems to wear extra clothes, happen in one of the hottest months of the year.
I love strawberries on a hot biscuit, fire-flies flashing in the dark and children playing outside. Shorts and flip flops and tank tops. Visits to the ice cream shop and cantaloupe and fresh peaches.
June also gives us Flag Day which doesn't seem to have the same bang it did years ago. I love the flag and I'm glad there is a day set aside just for Old Glory!
June begins the time of year for Vacation Bible Schools in neighborhood churches and dinner on the grounds. Okay, if mind hits the ground I aint eating it but you get the idea.
One of my favorite things about June is how nicely she introduces us to July. I really love July. More heat, more cookouts, more flag and more ice cream. Thank you June!
Summer was always a favorite time for me. It was a time to sharpen and utilize my imagination. There were lots of wars to win and Indians to chase and villains to catch. Sometimes I would slow down long enough to catch a doodlebug or chase a butterfly and just hang out with my dog.
Later years were filled with pick up games and hanging out with friends and cruising the strip. If you lived in my home town, cruising the strip could burn, oh three, maybe four minutes. But it was great and all of those things live right in my mind never to be disturbed. They are a great asset.
June is also the month of starting Summer Camp. I love summer camp and planned to go this year but our week for camp conflicted with family plans so I had to back out. But I have been to my share of summer camps as an adult and as a teenager. I have been the Camp Pastor for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) camp of over five hundred teens and one with less than one hundred teens. I have chaperoned camps that were high energy and exhausting. I have played games as an adult that adults are not designed to play.
As a teen camp was always lots of fun and many great friendships were fashioned in those experiences.
But there is one camp in June that sticks out above them all. It was in 1969 (the best I can recall) and it was in the hills of North Carolina. It had been a fun week filled with lots of adventures. This particular event happened on the last night of Camp as we would return home the next day. No doubt by design that was the night that we attended an out door chapel service by the lake with a fire and a cross. We did that every night, but this night, the last night is when they shared a very specific message. I do not remember a word that was said or who said it that night. But I do remember a tugging at my heart and an inability to stay put as I moved from my split log bench and walked to the front where the fire and the cross was. It was that night that I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ.
My life has not been perfect and I have messed up many, many times. My life in Christ is a work in progress and His incredible grace is more than sufficient to cover all my failures.
But since that hot Thursday night in June about 47 years ago my life has not been the same and my eternity is set and secure!
So I wish you a Happy June
