“Camp Meeting” was a time when Nana, my grandmother, went to the woods with other Christians, and slept in a tent and ate at a picnic table and listened to a preacher and sang hymns with spirit and gusto. I sometimes accompanied my father when he went to drive her home at the end of the Camp Meeting.

“This is a neat cot, Nana,” I said. “ It must be fun to sleep in a tent in the woods.” “The cot isn’t very comfortable,” she answered. “Well, it must be nice to eat your meals outside in the woods.” I commented. “The food isn’t very good”, she replied. “Why do you come here, Nana?” I asked. Her reply was, “I come for the preaching and the singing.”

I knew that Nana had friends that she met at Camp Meeting, and that she looked forward to seeing them, but I didn’t ask any more questions. “The preaching and the singing” were the farthest things from any priority I could have had. I couldn’t imagine traveling to a place in the woods just for that. Surely there had to be more. Whatever it was, it had a real hold on Nana, for she loved to go to Camp Meeting each year. She never mentioned the Spirit of God that she might have experienced, or even the fellowship of friends.

“Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” (Philippians 2;1-2)

“ In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

I was very young when I visited the Camp Meeting site, but I remember being puzzled that there was something more than hard cots and unappetizing food that drew people to the woods. Nana called it “The preaching and the singing,” and that was certainly strong, but I believe that she and many others received the fellowship of the Holy Spirit there in the woods, in large and small measures. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ , and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Love in Him,

Prue