Throughout I have been to many camps both through church and outside of church, and I have always been devastated whenever it's ended. I have gone through what a friend of mine calls 'Post Retreat Depression' (PRD) after these camps and really, really miss them. It could be because I'm deprived of the games and people, or because I can't have the same life-changing atmosphere. Nevertheless, I miss camp dearly, and I don't know what to do about it.
PRD hit big this past summer after attending YBL**, a summer camp with 25 other highschoolers from all over the US where we spent two weeks together learning about leadership and loving our neighbor. It was a phenomenal experience that truly impacted my life for the better. Everyone apart of that camp became so close and the last day was full of tears. We had found a rhythm and we were in a community where we were all focusing on the same thing and had worked equally as hard to get there. The last day was full of tears, knowing that we probably wouldn't all be in the same room together again. There is a song we sang together every single night that had a lyric, "And if the Lord should bring us back together/May we be in his arms still then", that really just conjured buckets of tears.
For the days after YBL, we all felt different. It was different being with people who hadn't experienced what we had and didn't understand the inside jokes that were constantly being made. But the thing is, YBL wasn't there for us just so we could experience it at Asbury University with the smae people from June 6-17, 2016. YBL happened so that we could experience the love and connection wherever and whenever. These retreats that we get PRD from follow us, and they're meant to follow us. There's a reason you feel pain and you can't ignore that.
It's important to take what you've learned and put it out into your life. If you lock everything away, what was the point? If you don't take your experience and apply it to your everyday life, there doesn't really seem to be a reason for you to have gone in the first place. These retreats are for growth and change that won't stay put. These growths keep growing and the changes keep on changing. After finding something that impacts you so much, you need to share it. You need to tell others so they can go through the same eureka you went through. In a way, it's selfish of you wanting to hide a tremendous experience from someone. There's a reason for you feeling PRD, and maybe it's just a little push to tell everyone the crazy amazingness.
**I do plan on writing a post that focuses on YBL and the whole experience