About the Author

Now graduated from her role as a homeschooling mom of 8, Dawn Camp devotes her time and love of stories to writing her first novel. She enjoys movie nights, cups of Earl Grey, and cheering on the Braves. She and her husband navigate an ever-emptying nest in the Atlanta suburbs.

(in)side DaySpring: things we love
& you will too!
Find more at DaySpring.com
(in)side DaySpring:
things we love
& you will too!
Find more at
DaySpring.com
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  1. I love every word of this. Thank you for saying it! Yes and amen!! I wish more adults understood how important it is to just be present. Show up! You don’t need to have all the answers. A friendly, sympathetic face will do.

  2. Dawn,

    I shared your devotion x 2!

    I always love to read your devotions. The older I get the more I realize how fragile life is and how we have much more in common than we do different.

    Sending you summer joy,

    Lisa Wilt

  3. Beautiful words on friends listening and being there for one another. When a friend is going through something hard, I always ask myself what I would need to hear if the situation was reversed. It’s always just a listening ear and empathy.

  4. Dear Dawn…….I loved your story today. I am a 77 year old woman with a 55 year marriage that has broken up due to my husband’s violent kind of Dementia and he abused me for 3+ years to try to get him out of the denial he was in. No avail with this, and then my one son called me and told me I was lying about his father. It was just old age. He said he no longer considered me his mother and I could never, ever speak or see my 1 grandson (12 years old at the time) again and he hung up. A heartbreaking so severe that I just collapsed in tears and threw up. He did eventually after I had to have my husband evicted from the house, that I was not lying and his father is very sick. He never came back to me though and my grandson is soon to be 14 and still no contact. I always put on a happy face around other people while my heart was crying. Your story touched me as even as a child, my mother told me I was very generous and cared about many people. After college, I still was not sure what I wanted to do, but my Holy Spirit and Jesus whispered to me to start at the bottom. Please remember we are talking about the late 60’s and early 70’s. I followed their path and I got a job cleaning other women’s houses. Each job I had after that taught me a lot as long as you pay attention and remember situations that happened that you had to try and solve. Finally I got to a job as a receptionist for a trucking company that employed 300 drivers. The first call I had to take as they had just moved me to the Payroll Dept. was an angry driver really cursing at me. I was 24 years old and really did not know how to manage it so I put him on hold for a minute to think. When I got back on the phone I threw the same language, a lot of F words which I don’t use, but I said if you don’t change your attitude, I am NOT going to help you. Pause, but he came back and stopped the foul language. I said thank you and asked him what was wrong. I told him I would do everything I could to find out what went wrong and said if it was our mistake, I will authorize with dispatch an emergency advance an correct the mistake and he would get that money next week. I was there for 10 years and really it may sound crazy, but I learned so much about people and how to handle certain personalities. What Jesus and my Holy Spirit had told me all those years ago worked to my benefit. The trucking company unfortunately closed so off I went looking for another job. This time through something that God did, I was called to interview for a position that I considered my “Dream Job”. I had been working elsewhere for 6 months, but it was not for me. I interviewed twice for I hoped would be my job and finally got the call that they would like to offer me the position. Happiness just enveloped me. I worked there for 35 years as a C/S Manager. Most of the employees there were much younger than me, but step by step they learned that I would answer their questions whether it was work related or personal and I never got angry at anyone as all my experience previously taught me that generosity and caring was the way to go. These people really saw that I was a good person and if they wanted to talk off the floor, I told them I would schedule a conference room and let them know when I could find a time. It got to the point that some of the older girls even discussed their physical problems or parental concerns. I am retired now, but because of the way I acted and was for those 35 years, 25 people that had reported to me wrote letters themselves and I ended up winning the highest award that an employee at this company could win. It was called “The CARE Award”. I was shocked and stunned the day it was announced and I did cry. There was a huge situation that they prepared for this award which I won’t go into as I have already rambled on too much. I pray that I did not bore you too much. The main point that goes back to your story Dawn, is that sometimes don’t go the way you want, but that is God’s plan for us and it did turn into being something even better than what I thought could be when I was 24 years old. I live in a facility now as I had to sell our house of 40 years. People were very skeptical about me for a long time because of the way I dress and my jewelry, blond hair (bleached) and the way I carry myself, but day by day I have done things and talked to people that are in their 80’s, 90’s and even up to 103 years old. The word has gotten around that they had been wrong about me and I have many people that come to me for various reasons. As God says “I am what I am”. I still am heartbroken about my husband, son and grandson but I have cast those concerns to Jesus’s feet and I just need to be patient until I get a sign. Thank you Dawn for this story. I only had 1 child so I can’t imagine what it would be like to have more. Having 1 was difficult enough trying to balance job, house, child care by me and so many other things. I send my love to you and if you will, please say a prayer for me. Thank you again…..Betsy Basile

    • Thank you for your comment, Betsy. I love what you said: “all my experience previously taught me that generosity and caring was the way to go.” So true! We need more of that.

  5. BEAUTIFUL, Dawn! Everyone needs to know the feeling of having a soft place to land! And I pray that God will use me to be that soft place for others, along the way!

  6. (while teens are usually dealing with more than hormones, yes, *also* hormonal swings can be extremely disorienting and require a whole new set of tools to identify and wrangle into their correct place in the hierarchy of what is running you… says someone who is not looking forward to perimenopause/menopause…)

    (and *YES* to more patience because of a realization that the surface of anyone else isn’t all that’s going on. I do still get impatient with people who are continually amplifying petty drama, even though that too is probably because of something or other – but it seems like more of a choice of approach? But maybe it isn’t.)

    • Yes, KC, hormones on their own are a lot! Look at what they do to us during pregnancy (and, as you mentioned, menopause). We need to lead with kindness.

  7. I thought this was a wonderfully written piece. I am not religious but I often visit this site because of the writers, and it was refreshing for me to read a piece that got to the heart of what she was saying, telling a full cohesive story, BEFORE she invoked scripture, at the end.

  8. Dawn,

    I’ve been through my share of trials with aging parents & their dementia issues. I am very empathetic towards my patients & their families. Do my best to encourage them & offer support & help any way I can. Once you’ve experienced something it is easier to encourage others. You are blessed to have a group of friends who can be there for each other.

    Blessings 🙂