Titles are Dumb. When I Can't Explain.

Lately it feels like I'm wearing a nice dark shade of exhaustion under my eyes. That the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like months and the months feel like years. Everything crawling at a snail's pace of slower than slow, and I'm stuck in this ever rotating feeling of overwhelmed, slowness, sadness, exhaustion. And I'm a sad pile of loneliness. Trying to find my feet in this ever-shifting world, trying to relocate my dependence on God and wondering when I made the decision that I could detach myself from His ever-loving graceful arms, and still think I could function in the day-to-day hustle of life and hard knocks.

And there are many moments where I feel I just don't belong to this place anymore. That the things I thought I'd miss aren't really here anymore and the cravings of community and relationships and people who take genuine interest in my life, my struggles, and my ever-changing and growing relationship with Christ are few and far between. And I find lately I've been replacing my heart space with complaining and wishing people would just once, be REAL, rather than taking that space and filing it with Jesus. This is my problem.

More than anything, I need Jesus. I don't know what life would be like without Him. I need Him like air in my lungs and my sweaters on the cold days. He is my breath, my strength, my warmth, and yet in the valley's of life, in the suffering moments, I think, nah, Jesus you take a seat on the bench, you stand in the on deck circle and let me take a few swings at life first. Why.... Why do I do this?

There's this idea that we must be happy, do what makes us happy, live happy. just be happy. But what if that's not it, what if we are not made to be eternally and forever happy about situations in life. Sometimes I don't want to smile and pretend like everything is okay when i have decision to make and the walls of life feel like they are crumbling all around me. Sometimes I want to crawl into bed and sleep for days, sometimes I just want my mom to be here to hug me and tell me that it's okay to be sad, or my dad to tell me I'm brave and strong and that everything will work out fine, or my sister to tell me to stop being a giant baby, punch me in the arm, and tell me to keep going on. Sometimes you want these things and most times you just can't have them. And I'm learning how to deal with that.

I'm learning how to make decisions on my own, learning that sometimes I will be sad, sometimes I will be in pain, and sometimes i will be happy. That it is okay to feel everything so deeply, the way that I do. That life comes at you fast and you have to roll with the punches and have a lot of faith in what you cannot see, because someday you just might see it and it will be a glorious thing.

The hardest part of this season in my life has been accepting that my heart feels broken in the presence of a good God. That the sadness and the loneliness sometimes overwhelm me to the point that I wonder what good it is doing in my life, I wonder if Jesus can feel the heaviness inside my soul. The heaviness of the lives of the people around me, the weights I bear and the breaths I struggle to take as I tread this murky and choppy waters.

But I also have to remember who He is, and lately I've been so discouraged by the people who are His followers, who claim to know and love Jesus, that I've been neglecting who He is in my life. That I've let the busyness of the day to day and my studies and my own selfish desires get in the way of the beauty of what He's made in me and what He is doing.

And yet there is this tremendous relief in knowing His love for me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me. That He's seen the things I've done and knows the things I will do and yet looks at me and says "Cameron, I love you, I love your messy life, I love your wayward heart and I'm calling you back to me."

And so I run. and I keep running. and I learn, and I'm still learning. That sometimes we're the hands, sometimes we're the feet. sometimes we're the ones helping, and sometimes we're the ones in need. But whatever we do in life, we work towards the glory and the goal of the Kingdom. That in the the end, the grades I've received on my exams won't matter and the hours of volunteering i acquire is not as important as Jesus. as people seeing Him, even in my sadness and my loneliness.

That He is the one who is elevated above all. Yeah, it's easier said than done, and somedays the days defeat me and I'm a cranky ole' woman. but you know what, Jesus is still there, tugging on my heart strings, tugging me along this rocky path. Cause life is a journey that we don't travel alone. He is with us always. Even when we can't feel Him, He asks us to open our eyes, to really look and to really see, that He is a work even in the messy, sad, lonely, crapy moments.

So I'm learning this, through tears, through laughter, through angry thoughts. I'm learning that He is the ultimate carrier of burdens and I must drop the weights, must drop my five gallon buckets I carry and trust Him to carry me in return. I mean, He holds the whole world, so I'm pretty sure He can hold me. right?!?


So I let go and let His river's current take me where I need to go.



HIS and yours,




 Cami

The Widow Ruth; A Radiating Light.

Ruth.

            In Hebrew the name Ruth means companion, or friend, or a vision of beauty.

Ruth.

A name that’s been floating around in my head a lot lately, a lot more than usual, and I just can’t seem to shake this name, to shake her face from the images in my mind. And I’m wondering where she is right now? What she is doing? Is she gardening with the other widows? Is she taking care of her many children? Is she picking mangos and placing them into hands of complete strangers, the way she did with me? Is she even still alive? Or is she up in heaven, dancing on golden streets with Jesus? These question plague me, because deep down I know I may never know the answers.

In these moments and small memories, I’m seeing how much this little old widow impacted my life. In the very limited time I spent with her, she allowed me to see myself in a different light, in a loving light. She looked at me like I was wanted, like I was needed. Me, a complete stranger. She made me feel at home in the palm of her hands. Her rough hands holding tightly to mine, dragging me along a path to a garden and to houses and to mango trees. All the while chatting away in a language I yearned to understand. And I remember her uttering a singe phrase and clinging tightly to my hand. I smiled at her and nodded pretending like I understood. And the pastor we were with, turned and said “Cami, do you understand what she just told you?”  I laughed and said “No.”

And the pastor looked between me and Ruth and smiled and said “She said ‘in you daughter, I see the radiance of Christ.”

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. In no way did I ever feel like I was radiating Christ, I constantly felt dirty and grimy, like I was constantly in the way. And yet even in those dirty, disgusting, selfish moments, God broke through and shed his light onto the face of a widow.

 And I just hope I’m still radiating.

           I hope that this bright light hasn’t burnt out in the whirlwind of this world and of this life. That even if it has dulled, it’s still burning and shining through in all my moments. That Christ is being radiated from my life.

Why am I sharing this story?

Because my heart hurts, it aches to know where Ruth is, how her health is, how her children are, how her garden is? It yearns to ask these question, to hold the worn hands of my companion, my friend, this vision of beauty in an otherwise dim hard ugly moment of my life.

But not only that. It’s because I think we often forget how much we can impact the lives around us. It’s been two years and I still remember the words Ruth spoke into my life. I still remember the feel of her overworked hands in my delicate ones. I remember her laughter and her brown eyes, and the way her hair was wrapped up in her conga. I can’t forget her.

Recently in small groups we were talking about the Healing at Bethesda. And this got me thinking a lot about how graceful Jesus is. Jesus sought out this crippled man and asked him if he wanted to be healed and then healed him. He spoke words into his life that caused this man to pick up his mat and walk. Was this man worthy of healing, no not really. He turned around and betrayed Jesus, like Judas, to the Jewish leaders. And yet look at HIS grace. He heals him anyway, evening knowing that this once crippled man will use this gift, this healing of his legs to walk right to the leaders and tell them it was Jesus!

Jesus seriously blows my mind!

You see I started comparing this story to my own life. I was, am, and sometimes I know will continue to be this invalid man by the pool, waiting for someone to pick me up and take me where I need to go. That I am unworthy of the healing being offered, because in my heart I know, just like the crippled man, that I will betray Jesus again. And it hurts.

But I’ve seen this story in John take root in my life. With Ruth. At the time of meeting Ruth I was battling, I was sick of everything I was. And then words were spoken into my life that caused healing in my heart and continue to heal me every day since then. And I believe that Jesus reached through Ruth to me. And How do you tell a woman 8000 miles away that Jesus has used her, continues to use her. That in her I see the radiance of Christ. Every single day of my life.

You see like in John, the man couldn’t find anyone to lift him into the pool, and I couldn’t find anyone to fulfill the emptiness I kept seeing in my worthlessness. But Jesus, met the man where he was at, and Ruth grabbed my hand and pulled me back to Christ all the way in Tanzania.

Because even though the man had no way to get to Jesus. Jesus could get to him. And in that time in my life and even now, there are days I just can’t seem to get there. Can’t seem to reach Him. But even thought I can’t get to Jesus, He can always, always get to me. He never fails, never gives up.

And lately I’ve been feeling like I just don’t belong in this place. I feel lonesome, not alone, just lonesome. And Jesus keeps reaching out and tugging me along, reminding me what I’m here for, what my life is for.

I was not made to live a luxurious life, to have the fancy cars and clothes and money. I was made to walk barefoot on unknown roads, to meet people where they are, just like Him. I was made to follow in His footsteps, to live a life set apart.

And it’s so not easy. The desires of this world often overtake me. I stress, I panic, I anguish. And yet He is here walking with me. And I hear the words in Sakuma in my head and then translated into English. “In you daughter I see the radiance of Christ.”

I just hope that I can continue to live out the words that Ruth saw. That I can continue to meet people where they are and speak words of love, encouragement, and Jesus into their lives. That regardless of how bad I think things are, Jesus makes it better.

            That I continue to stretch the limits of my faith, knowing that Jesus is pulling me along, that I’m going to be just fine and wherever He decides to take me and whoever He places in front of me, I will reach out in love no matter what. I will be slow to anger and abounding in love.

            My hope is that this radiance that Ruth saw, seeps into every motion and ever fiber of my being. That wherever Ruth is, she will see this radiance in herself and others will see it to. We never know how we impact the people around us, and we never know how the people around impacts us.

            But isn’t it such a beautiful story when Jesus reaches down and meet us where we’re at.

            Sitting in Awe of the Wonders of His Love,

HIS and yours,

 Cami