Ded

I cracked up. Dining hall conversations are one of my top favorite things. Everyone sits down over camp food and laughs at hilarious stories, bonds over the week’s struggles, and breaks down any barriers that ever existed.

“Ready for the urn.”

That was the joke of the week.

“It’s so hot, I’m ready for the urn!”

In context, the joke is that you have completed your stay–– “I can’t lol,” “I’m dying right now– ded” (ded- to die from hilarity; dies from laughter), or “that is it for me”, “can’t continue,” “I feel too old.”

It sounds quite grim when you define it. But when you are sitting in the devil’s armpit (another joke of the week; our loving nickname for the obscene 104-degree heat at camp in Spain), everything becomes a bit more funny.

However, in hindsight. I see a different way to look at its definition.

In the midst of it all, when the exhaustion, heat, and work can make you feel selfish, exhausted, and grumpy, you must die to yourself.

“What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who die to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6:1-6)

So, in my own work around way, “ready for the urn” became a funky reminder to bear with my team in the midst of the struggles; to die to ourselves and adopt a mindset that reflects us being alive in Christ.

Perhaps this doesn’t mean much to you. Maybe it’s still the lasting impact of the time spent working in the heat and you cannot see the connection I’ve made in the phrase, or the humor of it all–– and that’s okay–– but, remember in those moments, when you are over it and you just can’t anymore, that you can rejoice in being alive in Christ, with a new perspective, filled with love and endurance.

Being ready for the urn is a fine thing. So long as in your struggles you are not “over it,” but allowing God to help you overcome it.