Dawn Camp

What Our Ancestry Can and Can’t Tell Us at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 22:14:48 +0000

Before Christmas, many things I wanted to upgrade or try for the first time went on sale. It takes a strong will to resist a good sale, and I succumbed to purchasing two: upgrading from a yearly subscription to a lifetime membership on an editing software I use, and taking advantage of a special offer on two DNA testing kits. For the latter, my husband and I shipped off sealed containers of (an insane amount of) our saliva and waited.

On Christmas Eve, I received an email that my results were ready. I abandoned all holiday preparations and dove into a genealogy rabbit hole. First, I read the weightier reports: my dad and grandmother both had colorectal cancer, but I don’t have either of the two genetic variants they tested. The tests didn’t detect variants for a host of other conditions either, although they found one associated with age-related macular degeneration and another for a condition characterized by too much iron absorption. The reports said, however, I’m not at increased risk.

I found less serious, quirkier results in the Traits tab, divided into physical features, taste and smell, and weird and wonderful. It confirmed things I already know: there’s a 63% chance I don’t have dimples (I don’t), a 52% chance I have blue eyes (I do), and a 65% chance my ring finger is longer than my index finger (it is). I have higher odds of disliking cilantro (I eat it, but it smells like stinkbugs), am less likely to be able to match a musical pitch (I didn’t need science to confirm this disappointing fact), and am less likely to have thick hair (sad, but true).

Five years ago, I developed an interest in my ancestry and spent hours researching it with help at a genealogy center and later on my own at home. If my results are accurate, I traced my family tree back hundreds of years. I became tangled in its branches, trying to verify relationships with leaders, entertainers, or authors, as if their accomplishments could enhance my own.

I’m not alone in my quest for information about myself and my family. Many of us look for answers about who we are and what makes us tick. We study the results of DNA testing and build ancestry charts. We take online quizzes and interest inventories. We interpret our behavior and personality through the lens of Enneagram numbers or Myers-Briggs types. But tests, even the scientific ones, don’t reveal the complexity of a human being.

Please join me at (in)courage for the rest of the article!

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© 2023 Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

The Ministry of Breaking Bread at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 22:08:25 +0000

One of our daughters got married on a lovely day in October. Preparing for it long-distance was a challenge. She’s lived in Florida since 2022 and the wedding took place here in Georgia. We missed out on the fun of planning together face-to-face, and the thought of forgetting or messing up a crucial detail terrified me.

Our original guest list of nearly 200 people was the max our venue could accommodate. Although we tried to keep up with the RSVPs, sometimes people are hard to nail down and things happen. When preparing to feed so many people, it’s easy to question quantities. We trusted the caterer’s formula for the meal itself. My husband and I each calculated how many gallons of water, sweet tea, and lemonade we’d need, but at the last minute, my daughter wanted us to double it to be safe. Same with the appetizers we made for guests to enjoy while the wedding party took photos.

Sure enough, we had plenty of leftovers. At the end of the evening, we loaded the back of my car with the extra food and drinks and sent more home with our adult children. I knew what we’d be eating for supper each night and what my husband would take to work for lunch each day. And after months of excitement and anticipation building towards this day, I welcomed a week off of kitchen duty.

Have you noticed how items appear larger when you bring them into your home? That a couch that seemed a reasonable size in the showroom barely fits in your living room? That’s how it felt when we unloaded the leftovers and stacked metal pans filled our garage refrigerator. No way could we eat this much in a week. I began looking for opportunities to feed others with our bounty.

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© 2023 Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Overcoming Our Natural Instinct to Resist Correction at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 20:30:37 +0000

When writing, I’m private about my work. Even though it eventually goes out into the world in a book or an article, if someone walks into the room while I’m writing, I’ll put my computer to sleep or shut my laptop. While working on my first novel, however, I recognized and accepted the need for feedback along the way. I didn’t want to invest months creating a book that wouldn’t appeal to the reader.

Although I haven’t found a critique partner, my husband and a friend from church are my first readers, sharing their observations as I write. I place new chapters in an old black binder, trading them back and forth on Sundays with my friend, or emailing them as an ePub file to our Kindle for my husband to read.

My friend annotates the pages before passing them back. If she says something’s corny, I strike a sentence with no regrets. If she marks a passage as “confusing,” I rewrite it for clarity. If she draws a smiley face or underlines a phrase and writes, “Love this!” I mentally high-five myself.

She once explained she hadn’t left notes on a chapter because she was caught up in the story, reading fast to see what would happen next. That made my day.

I receive my friend’s suggestions well and eagerly apply them to my work.

It seems, however, I respond less favorably to my husband’s criticism.

I’m not sure why. Maybe I see myself as the documenter and him as the doer, and question whether he can know more than me in my field. I would never correct the way he organizes a spreadsheet (he’s a master), changes the brakes in our cars, or mows the lawn. I should respect his suggestions as a reader, but I get defensive.

Please join me at (in)courage for the rest of the article!

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© 2023 Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

When the Culture Promotes Negativity, Let’s Be Counter-Cultural today @ (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 22:06:53 +0000

I paused in the middle of a writing session to open a new tab on my web browser. After years devoted to nonfiction, I’m twenty thousand words into the rough draft of my first novel (it both thrills and terrifies me to type these words). The differences between genres no longer overwhelm me, I can compose dialogue (yay!), and I’ve become comfortable writing from points of view beyond my own.

For my last two books, I researched articles in science journals. Now I study character development, and how to describe real places or fabricate fictional settings. I ponder fresh word choices and avoid overused clichés, employ techniques like “show, don’t tell,” foreshadowing, and cliffhangers, and know that HEA means happily ever after. Sometimes I’m so fully immersed in my fictional world that writing dialogue feels like eavesdropping, as if I’m taking dictation on my characters’ conversations.

Some days the sentences build themselves. Perfect turns of phrase flow at will from my fingertips. Other days are just plain hard. I’m not sure what comes next (I’m a pantser, if you care to Google it) or I convince myself I’m wasting my time and no one will read, much less publish this book. On those days, either I push through, take a nap, procrastibake (yes, this is real), read a book, or allow research to lead me down an endless series of rabbit trails — this one has the initial benefit of feeling like work.

Recently, while searching for the perfect song title to use in a scene, I stumbled upon YouTube videos of genuine reactions to hearing famous songs for the first time. Have you seen these? There’s something compelling about watching another person encounter truth, goodness, and beauty in something familiar to you, like two gorgeous 70s pop tunes in the videos I watched. I hadn’t heard one of them in years, but I play it all the time now; it’s an earworm, and the subject of my first conscious thought some mornings.

I’m fascinated by the idea that my favorite song, book, movie, or album exists, but I haven’t discovered it yet. When I watch reaction videos, I anticipate witnessing someone make such a discovery, or at least unearth a treasure I already possess and add it to the lexicon of their cultural literacy. Things that are real, right, and lovely appeal to us and those that are fake, false, and ugly repel us. At least they should. But with time and exposure, we become desensitized. A word that used to guarantee a film an R rating is now common on television.

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When the Culture Promotes Negativity, Let’s Be Counter-Cultural

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© 2023 Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

This Day I Will Not Forget at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 10:00:42 +0000

My son sat in our living room with Bibles spread on the floor around him. He and I discussed translations, commentaries, and Study Bibles: the tools we use to interpret God’s Word. We talked about things like how I think 1 Corinthians 13 in the KJV reads like poetry.

I pulled a few more volumes from the shelf — a multi-volume exposition of the Old and New Testaments. They belonged to my grandfather, who was a minister. He passed away over thirty years ago, well before my son was born. I thought my son would enjoy diving deeper into the Word using these family heirlooms.

Time has aged and yellowed their pages. Nothing but duct tape and the grace of God hold some of them together. I can still picture Granddad studying in his recliner, his desk on his left, and bookshelves of religious commentaries behind him.

He filled his Bible, worn and supple, with notes and underlined verses in red. These lines weren’t haphazard. My grandfather drew them precisely, pen guided by a popsicle stick he positioned beneath the lines of text. I found one of his sticks a few years ago; I keep it in my Bible case, a personal treasure that steadies my hand now, as it once did his.

Inside John Gill’s Exposition of the Old Testament, Volume II, my son and I saw those familiar red lines on worn pages that still smell like my grandparents’ home. Granddad kept cards and letters in his books. In this one, we discovered a get well soon card, and an envelope on which Granddad had written “This Day I Will Not Forget.”

Please join me at (in)courage for the rest of the article and what I learned about sharing feelings and emotions with our people.

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© 2023 Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Living Our Best Year at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 13:55:31 +0000

After three weeks of hospice care, my mother quietly passed away in her own bed, surrounded by friends and family, on my 38th birthday. She never met the youngest of our eight children, much less their future spouses and the great-grandchildren she could have known in a healthier life, with a healthier body.

I’m now the age she was when she died. My heart aches not only for the pain she endured but also for nineteen years’ worth of memories she’s missed.

I’m determined not to take these days for granted. Life is a gift. And so I’m dedicating this year to my mother, to living my best year — our best year — and doing all the things she could have done if she’d been healthier or if she were still here with us.

Please join me at (in)courage to read the rest of the article about how I’ll honor my mother’s memory this year.

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© 2023 Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

The End of an Era at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 10:30:38 +0000

Our family will celebrate two milestones in May: our youngest child will graduate from high school and, after 30 consecutive years, I’ll retire from my job as a homeschool mom. This also means we’re in our final sports season with a child at home. We’ve cheered for our children at hundreds of baseball and softball games, as well as countless track and cross-country meets. So much is coming to a close.

To call it the end of an era feels like an understatement.

I’ll be glad to sleep in on Saturday mornings instead of driving to track meets. I’ll be happy to have the option of spending my day in heated or air-conditioned comfort, depending on the weather, instead of standing outside in 40-something degrees wearing three layers of clothes, or on the flip side of seasons, searching for a spot of shade under the team canopy in the sweltering heat. But I’d be lying if I said I won’t be sad about it too. It’s bittersweet, for sure.

I’ve known for years that this final graduation might wreck me emotionally (I shared my feelings about graduating our four youngest within a six-year period here), but admittedly, I’ve focused on how I feel about my daughter’s graduation much more than how I feel about mine. At long last, I’m beginning to glimpse the gift in it. There’s a feeling of lightness when you lay down something you’ve shouldered for a time. Thirty years of homeschooling eight children carries a weight of responsibility I’ve been blessed to bear, but I’m ready to release it.

Several friends graduate a child this year, some their first and some their last; for families with one child, it’s all of the above. Graduations bring transition. They disrupt our routines and change our roles. And for many of us, change can be difficult to embrace.

Please join me today at (in)courage for the full article. If you’ve graduated your youngest, I’d love to hear from you. If you’re graduating a senior this year, how do you feel?

Love Thy Neighbor

Dawn Camp — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 13:58:14 +0000

On Christmas Day, as we sat in our living room and opened presents with immediate and extended family, one of our daughters called out to my husband from the garage. Initially, she sounded calm; when she repeated herself we could tell it was urgent. She’d slipped out to get something and discovered water pouring from the ceiling, running under my car, and then flowing outside beneath the garage door.

After days of sustained sub-freezing temperatures, our pipes burst. Everyone jumped into action, trying to control and evaluate the damage. Our home’s previous owner had expanded the master closet, extending it into the garage on the other side of the wall. When I answered a call for help from that direction, I found two of my sons moving hangers of my clothes from one side of the room to the other as water spilled in around one of the recessed lights. I’m thankful for their quick thinking: I had forgotten it was originally part of the garage. I returned with a bucket and towels and they controlled the chaos in that area.

My husband turned off our water from the shut-off valve at the street and then hurried to sweep the pooled water from the garage so it wouldn’t freeze there; an icy trail snaked down our driveway for a couple of days. Next, he cut into the garage ceiling and found the problem pipe. Neighbors, who arrived when they saw what was happening, told us how they once helped a past owner of our home fix a similar issue.

Fourteen of us were home when our pipes burst. We forgot about opening Christmas presents and did what needed to be done at the time. Later when I drove a carload over to use the bathroom at the neighborhood pool, we found water pouring out below the water fountain between the men’s and the women’s restrooms. I reported it on the neighborhood Facebook group and someone turned off the water. As my niece pointed out, I had effectively cut off access to our only bathrooms.

Thankfully for us, that’s when our neighbors stepped in.

Please join me today at (in)courage for the rest of the article!

Peace When Everything Spins Out of Control today at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 16:12:18 +0000

It amazes me how quickly things can go south, snowballing from bad to worse, and I allow myself to become overwhelmed by it all. Recently I had such an experience on what was an otherwise grand day, my daughter’s 23rd birthday. It began with brunch for friends and family at a favorite bagel restaurant. Although our daughter was house-and-pet-sitting that week, she’d planned fun activities interspersed throughout the day; I would cover for her in the evening so she could stay out longer with her siblings and friends.

Late that afternoon, just before I left home to relieve her, I realized there was a problem with our plumbing: the toilets wouldn’t flush. I called and asked my husband to hurry home from work ASAP and check it out. A few minutes later as I pulled onto the highway, I heard an explosive sound and ducked. Scanning around me, I discovered a starburst crack with a tail trailing behind it at the edge of my windshield.

The plumbing situation turned out to be more than my DIY-savvy husband could handle. He called a plumber, but they couldn’t work us into the after-hours schedule; we would have to wait until morning. Though I spent a relaxing evening curled up with a book in front of a fire watching two little dogs for my daughter, it never left my mind that I would return to a house without plumbing and overnight lows near freezing. We hoped our gate code worked year-round for the bathrooms at our neighborhood pool.

Worry kept me from sleeping well. I found out what I was willing to do with a full bladder on a dark night in a private backyard. Once morning’s light — and soon after, the plumber — arrived, I made the mile drive to the pool, where our gate code did work. Hallelujah.

Please join me today at (in)courage for the rest of the article, which I hope will bring you peace when circumstances spin out of your control.

The Impact of Each of Our Simple, Singular Lives at (in)courage

Dawn Camp — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 14:32:41 +0000

I felt my watch vibrate and glanced down at the words on the screen. My attention focused as I scrolled through the details of the message and then fumbled through my nearby bag, searching for a tissue to dry my eyes. I couldn’t believe the news:

My dear friend Dan had passed away.

Brother Dan, as he was known, was 92 years old — in his case, 92 years young; he could have passed for more than a decade younger. Dan always wore a rascally smile, like he was up to no good (in the best possible way). Call it cliché, but the man’s eyes twinkled.

Brother Dan was tall and strong, a former high school coach of multiple sports, the kind of man you want mentoring your child. His family displayed photos of him coaching basketball, softball, track, and football teams at the visitation the day before his funeral. I’m curious how many lives he influenced, the generations of students who looked up to him and became better athletes (and better humans) because of his guidance. For decades’ worth of Sundays, he served as sideline coach, long-distance spectator, and vocal cheerleader for my family through conversations in the church fellowship hall.

When our oldest son consistently finished second to the same opponent in the two-mile at his high school track meets, Brother Dan mapped out a strategy that enabled him to win his final race. He encouraged people to do their best by playing to their strengths. Brother Dan didn’t change our son physically, but he changed his mindset. Later our son would apply that lesson to the way he played baseball too.

Please visit me today at (in)courage for the rest of the article!