Fear is Overwhelming, Strength is Overrated.

How should I begin. Should I write a list of rules and guidelines, of do's and dont's? Should I pick a nice number that adds up all the ways to get through this. Should I give advice that I certainly would never take myself? Should I smile through clenched teeth and say everything is alright if we just do this number of things.  Giving an answer to all these questions, to aching hearts and wandering eyes. A list. would that do it?

Not even.

And I'm tired of list, and numbers and bullet points of advice for my life. I'm tired of the 23 things i should do before i'm 24 and i'm tired of the 7 things i should do while I'm single and the 5 things i can do to be more joyful.

Life is not a list. Life is not bullet points. Life is not so easily mapped out. And I have to write these things out. Write them down, because that is what I do with the things that unravel me. I drag it across the page in hopes of it all making sense one day. But I'm seeing that sometimes it's best to stop trying to make sense of things, because life isn't always clear cut, black and white, there are always gray areas.

Lately it's felt like I've been wandering in the wilderness, with a broken heart, lost in every direction with no map to guide me and no footsteps to follow and I'm finding no trail of bread crumbs. There is dry rivers winding through the trees and me.

And the tears I've shed the past two weeks could fill these dry riverbeds. and in all my sorrow, I know Jesus is better, I need to make my heart believe.

But strength is overrated. And maybe I'm just saying that because I have no strength. Maybe I'm saying it because I feel so weak, too weak to pull myself out of bed, to eat, to shower, to make conversation, to go a day without swollen eyes and crying until I can't breathe. There is no list for these feelings. There is no boxes to check on how to get over this.  Life keeps hitting me hard in the face, waiting for me to get back up again just to kick me in the stomach. The wind is knocked out of me, I have to keep reminding myself how to breathe.

I think one of the most dangerous wars is the one we have within ourselves. I am so easily defeated by the one who knows me so well. Me.

"The weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." 1 Corinthians 1:25. But I want to know if His strength is greater than my weakness. greater than the ache of missing in my heart. Because lately this weakness has never felt so strong and I'm leaning in close to Him and He's giving me breath and He's drying my eyes and He's reminding me that it is okay to be sad. it's okay to miss the ones I so fiercely love. That there is nothing wrong with that. That "His grace is sufficient for me, His power is made perfect in weakness." But this weakness hurts more than it ever has before, my heart feels like paper, stained with tears, being torn in two. And it's hard to not want to pull away and hide in my darkness.

I am afraid. And the crazy thing is I made this decision. I chose to move across country, away from the people I've fallen in love with. But knowing I prayed through this decision and feel it's right doesn't make it any easier and doesn't make it hurt any less and doesn't mean i'm not scared out of my mind. It's a big life changing moment when I don't know what the next ten seconds will bring, but I know in my heart nothing is ever going to be the same.

And right now in my weakest moment, I want what was before this moment, I don't want the now. I don't want the fear of the unknown. I'm in uncharted territory, deep waters, in no-man's land. And I'm not really sure what to do next, but to be honest and say I'm sad. deeply sad. and I'm afraid. deeply afraid. And that that's okay.

A dear friend of mine constantly tells me to find my joy in Christ. To delight in Him and depend on Him, that Christ is where my true joy lies. and so I'm trying to lean more into His arms, more into His grace and His love. but I'm still afraid.

and i'm not saying with God we will no longer fear, that we will no longer be afraid. No I think that there will always be fearful moments in our lives. But it is with God that those moments become bearable. It's with Him that we can conquer them. It is going to take time and patience, something that I don't seem to have a lot of. And for me it's taken a lot of sobbing into my pillow and in the shower. lots of looking at pictures and listening to old voicemails. of trying to remember to not be afraid of the unknown but to embrace it with God right beside me.

That is where the Word comes in. Through the scriptures New and Old Testament are stories of people just like us. It may seem like an old boring book, but I bet if we open it up and we really look at it we'll find ourselves in it. Moses who kept silent out of fear he might stutter, Jonah ran scared of the place God was calling Him to. Martha busied herself, David full of jealously, Peter denied Jesus three times for fear he would be identified as a disciple. There are our stories in there, things that we struggle with, things that we go through, that we fear.

And throughout the Word it shows us that God is the one who conquers it. It shows us that no matter how worthless or inadequate or how scared we may be He is calling us, He is using us. Even if we don't know it, Even if it frightens us. He's taking care of us, carrying us through and giving us hope when all seems dim.

I'm not telling you to not be afraid. I'm afraid. I'm saying be afraid but do it anyway. at some point we just have to let go of what we thought should happen and live in what is happening.

I've constantly been telling myself stop being sad, don't be afraid and I'm realizing how stupid that is. saying don't be afraid is like saying don't move out of the way when someone tries to punch you, or don't blink or breathe, or don't be human.

I'm afraid and you're afraid and we're all going to be afraid that's the point, in this life it's bound to happen. What we should be telling ourselves is be afraid but do it anyway, love anyway, live anyway and know that God is there with us, guiding us and keeping those things that so easily frighten us at bay, even when it doesn't feel like it.

And I wish I could live my life always being happy and always be fearless. I wish I could live unafraid without making any wrong turns. But that's impossible. A path like that doesn't exist. We fail, we trip, we get lost, we make mistakes and little by little one step at a time by faith we push forward.

It's all we can do.

I've been waiting for God to give me some big purpose or waiting for Him to tell me that I haven't done enough yet. But I think He just wants me to understand that He is with me and for me no matter how sad, and dark and scared I may be right now.

...and when I become brave, I will let you know, but until than I'm going to try to do a lot of awesome things scared out of my mind, with faith that God's got me in His hands.

I am learning that I am not a train, and it's okay if I fall off the tracks. That "life is not about the outcome we settle into, but instead about the story we write along the way." And I'm enjoying the story so far, I wouldn't trade it for anything, and even the pain I'm feeling right now is worth it.

And I'm still scared and I'm still sad, but I'm also settling into this wild place, this uncharted wilderness, this no-man's land. Because it is even here that God is with me, and He loves to make a way when it seems like there isn't one.

He is singing over me "hey unfaithful, i will teach you to be stronger. hey ungraceful, i will teach you to love. hey unloving, i will always love you."

Leaning into Him through the sadness,



HIS and yours



Cami

Bone to bone, flesh to flesh, Breath life into me,

       There is this valley filled with bones. and I can feel them across my feet as I shuffle through. This valley filled with dry bones, bones cut off from everything, they echo against each other in the shadows. I ache from this journey through the bone-filled valley...
   And I've been walking through this for quite some time. You could chisel the shape of it into my heart and fill it with all these dry bones. cut off from everything, cut off from hope.  But I think I see something, think I hear something, think I feel something.
   Take a deep breath.
   The wind is coming.

And I wish I could put into words what these last couple months have been like. Like roller coasters, like rainy days, like mountaintops, like valleys.
   And I've been searching and learning what it looks like to follow after Jesus, been trying to dig deep into what that looks like. and I'm seeing that much of my learning to follow Jesus is unlearning to follow myself.
    Which is a hard lesson to learn by a selfish person. One who likes to think she deserves more than what she has. One who likes to believe she has everything figured out. One that too often looks nothing like Jesus and much like a valley of dry bones. Cut off from everything, cut off from hope, cut off from life. And I do it to myself, then turn around and blame someone else, something else. But only I can ask for this wind to blow through these dry bones, only I can ask for the tendons and the flesh and the skin to cover me. and only I can look to Him and ask for His breath, His wind of life to breathe through me. No one else can do it for me, only me.
    I think it's easier to be in this valley and be dry, to be able to have excuses and complaints about things, rather than be walking through this valley filled by the wind and the breath of the spirit. It's easier to walk through a place when we don't stand out, when we blend in, when we are all bone and no life.
    But that's not how I am called to live. I'm not called to walk through this valley of bones, dried up and hopeless. I'm called to walk through with breath, with life, and hope and let God speak through me like He did with Ezekiel and bring these other dry bones back to life!
     Because without the breath of life, we will never really live. I mean we can even have the tendons, and the flesh, the skin, we can have everything but breath and look like we're alive, but without that breath, without that wind deep within us, deep within our lungs we're still just dry bones covered in skin, lying in a valley going nowhere.
    We need this wind. We need this breath. We need life. We need HIM.
   
 And I believe that life is made up of more valley's than anything and yet we constantly mope around in these, through most of our lives we wait to feel the wind once we get to the mountaintops, when what we should be doing is calling to the wind from down in the valley.
   So I think I realize what I've been doing. I see that I've been like a pile of bones laying in a valley waiting to feel tendons in me, waiting to feel flesh over me, waiting to feel breath through me. waiting to live.
     And I'm like the house of Israel in Ezekiel, who kept saying their bones were dried up, that they had no hope, that they were cut off in the valley.
   But God is calling to me, He's pulling me out of the grave I've dug for myself. He's put tendons on my dry bones, and has given me skin to cover them. and He's breathing His life, His spirit into me. And now I must walk.
    Because I really do believe that it is easier to cut ourselves off in the valleys of life. It's easier to lay down like a pile of dry bones, then to continue to let breath fill our tired lungs and walk on through. to let God bring us forth from the graves we so easily dig for ourselves and guide us, and push us through.
    We can't walk through these valleys and scale their walls to the mountaintops without breath, without God. We'll never survive this life we'll never survive the valleys.
   It's been a crazy couple of months. And the valley's have been so long lately, and i'm exhausted and yet I am still moving, I can still feel His breath in my lungs. There are big changes coming, big goodbyes that I'm nowhere near ready for. this is one of the toughest valleys I think I've ever had to go through. And in the beginning I wanted to lay down, defeated, like a pile of dry bones. But He kept pulling me, pushing me through. His wind rushing through me in these moments in the valley.
   And i've seen so much dependence, so much grace and so much love in all of it.
    No it has not been easy, and I don't think it's going to get any easier. I'm standing on a bridge between valleys and I'm on my knees. I'm not going back to that grave, I'm not going back to dry bones. I'm moving forward through the valley, with Him.

Listen... do you hear that. the rattling sound of bones coming together, bone to bone. do see that. the tendons, the flesh covering bones. do you feel that. the rush of wind, the breath of life moving through?
     He's given us life, so what are we doing with it? We have to get out of the grave and step into life.

   Can these bones live?
    HE alone knows.
    HE alone can give them life.



Bone to bone, flesh to flesh, Breath life into me,



HIS and yours,


 Cami

To the people that will live in my house after I move out,

 Welcome. welcome to this house. to this home. a home that is more than a home. it is a life. the walls within the home you’ve just begun to call your own have seen much life and much more love. they hold memories deep inside them and if you are quiet long enough, if you listen to the silence they’ll share their stories. 

and i don’t think you realize what you’ve just purchased, what you are walking into. This may look like a seemingly old farm house, but it’s so much more than that. You are walking into life. You are walking into love. You are walking into memories. 

The bottoms steps creak when you walk up them. You probably won’t notice, I never did until trying to sneak up the stairs at two am when I was suppose to be home at midnight. those three creaks were more severe then my punishment. I never forgot about them afterward. And now I can remember an exact path to avoid the creaks in the stairs. This house will give you away, but it will also hold your secrets once you learn to maneuver it.

On the all seasons porch, I swear if you inhale deep enough you can still smell Christmas in that room. 9 years of christmas, with ribbons and wrapping paper and early morning stockings. Little feet dancing to the gifts receiving. my brother, my sisters, and me. that room didn’t see much, not until Christmas…  like cinnamon rolls and evergreen trees and bits of laughter and arguments over who would open their presents first. I hope you decide to have Christmas in this room, the windows let the lights twinkle through perfectly. 

Oh, out there, by the propane tank. It holds significance for me. Of course because it’s the source of heat and warm showers, but there’s a spot there, when the tank was once a royal blue painted color, and the mulberry juice covers bare feet, on a chilly october evening where I had my first kiss. 13, young and thinking i knew what love was. he was beautiful, with eyes as blue as a mid-afternoon sky. I wouldn’t trade that moment for anything, a game of capture the flag had never been more appealing. I’m hoping there will be moments like that for you in this house, moments of pure joy. 

You see those trees there, yeah the ones lining the fence. Us kids, with our parents, planted every one of those trees. With lots of grumbling to our parents of course, but that’s when I learned how to use a shovel, and what it means to work hard. and looking at those trees now, tall, branches entangled in one another, i have pride in knowing i had a hand in making something beautiful. I know, I know this house is yours now, but please, make it beautiful. 

There used to be a tree house out back. okay i use the term tree house lightly. it was a floor and one wall with a ladder up the trunk. but the tree’s been long gone for years now, struck down by lightening on a stormy evening, and the tree house just another project that was never finished. but my dad taught my sister and i how to work with our hands that summer, and i wouldn’t trade that make-shift tree house and the hours spent with our dad for anything. 

Somewhere in the overgrown grass there’s remnants of a trampoline. oh that trampoline. my sister and i used to practice our gymnastics to country music for hours on end. we would put together skits and make our parents watch. and if you look close enough you can see a baseball diamond worn into the grass. from years of family baseball games. where everyone wanted to be on dad's team because we all knew that's how you win. before we actually were sucked into the world of tv and internet. in the days of carefree childhood, that was this house, carefree childhood. it’s still here, the carefree days, and i hope you find them here in this house. this house that is now your home.

and I know, i  know that garage looks like it’s on its last leg. but the garage has seen good days. It saw my first slow dance ever. it’s seen many feet of kids on birthday parties and housed dogs on sunny days when no one is home. It held my cars safe in it’s old walls during rain and snow storms. It’s where i was taught how to change a tire and check my oil. the garage may not look like much to you, but to me it’s a lot more than a garage. but i know, it’s yours now, so do with it what you will. 

you’ve gotten a deal with the basement. when we moved in my sister and i used to rollerblade around in circles down there, with the dogs on leashes leading us. it was just and empty room with a cement floor where we did laundry. but now it’s finished and ready for you to make memories of your own down there. do me a favor… pull up the carpet and roller blade around for a bit. You’ll love it. 

the kitchen, it’s where everyone entered the house. it has seen everyone who has ever come and gone in this house. we didn’t use the front door, we never did. it’s too formal, and our family has never been one for formalities. we like everyone to feel like family, you come in through the kitchen, it’s where family is at. it’s where I would see my parents laughing and dancing in the early morning making us kids breakfast. it's seen almost 14 thanksgiving turkeys and christmas hams. it's where family gathers. it's where my family gathered and i hope yours does too.

let me apologize for my closet. you won’t actually know which one is mine. but i just need to tell you that if you sometimes smell a faint scent of roses i am sorry. if you look close enough at the cracks in the floorboard you can see dried rose petals there. It’s where I threw the flowers he gave me after he broke my heart. i tried to get them all out but some are left behind. there are stains on those floorboards too. i can’t tell you whether or not there from tears or something else. this house holds so much happiness, but it also holds much sadness. 

and the living room. i can’t forget the place where all the living is done. that room has seen many late night conversations about life and love and God. that room holds the whole house together. it’s where family meetings took place. where we shared movies and music and meals. it's where things got heated over long games of monopoly. it’s where we talked about everything from school to sports to heartbreak and the future of our lives. It was the first room to be filled and the last one to be emptied. I hope your living is done here. deep conscious lovely living. this is your house now, but I just wanted you to know. 

I used to count the years i’d been in this house, i lost track after the first three and then i stopped looking at everything else. I began to memorize where each light switch was so that i could turn them on in the darkness. the number of stairs and the path to ascend and descend without waking anyone from sleep. the way it sounded when someone pulled into the driveway to visit, the gravel rocks crackling under tires. But eventually you forget the minutes you’ve been here and the days you’ve spent and the years racked up and you tend to remember the moments. 

The moments are the most important. Soak in the moments. This house has seen many. And I think this old home is ready for new memories to take within it’s walls and old deep. I think this house is ready to be your home. and I know, I know it’s your home now. live wildly. laugh loudly, live deeply within these walls. enjoy it. 

Welcome Home.

-with love 

 the previous tenant. 

Sometimes You Have to Let Things Go...

I have a grip like an iron fist. I hold on tight. My fingers white, my hands aching. I don't let go of things easily. I hold on until my fingers bleed or until there's nothing else to hold onto anymore. And lately I've been dealing with a lot of scary things. Trying to carry more than I can handle, trying to appear like I've got it under control. That my arms aren't struggling and my back doesn't ache, and no that is not sweat dripping from my forehead.


I'm good. I got this. Curling my fingers around things and people and places, knuckles bared and white and hands aching. I'm good. I got this.

And everything falls.

This post has been sitting here for far too long. way too long. Just waiting to be typed into existence. I haven't known how to get it all out. And yet would it even matter, does anything I have to say or do matter. Do I make a difference with this one post, with my words, with my heart. I'm dealing with too many scary things. I'm carry way too much, holding onto many things.

There comes a time when you just have to let things go.

Now is that time.

Lately life has seemed like a balance of holding on and letting go. And things have become uneven with too much holding and not enough letting go. But how do you come to terms with the quick switch of direction, the quick flip of the page, the quick hand flicks of goodbye that are coming? How do you deal? Honestly I've let the sadness seep into the corners of my soul and darken me.

If you would have asked me a few weeks ago how I was doing, I would have answered with a grunt and a growl. Because as of late, I have not been on speaking terms with God. My line of communication silenced by anger and frustrations and fear. so much fear.  And the thing about fear is, that it doesn't leave room for anything else like beauty or purpose. It sucks the life out of you. It sucks the hope out of you. Fear swallows hope. And I've felt hopeless lately.

My lack of faith has made me feel worthless and useless.

and I turn to Ecclesiastes, which I've been reading for almost two months now. The first month all I could focus on is the phrase "Everything is meaningless. ...a chasing after the wind." And my attitude reflected it. I didn't care, I didn't want, because everything was meaningless. Because I had it all planned out, my life and everything in between. I was going to be home for a short amount of time, work and save up money, then return back to the place where I buried my heart in the soil, dig it up, put it back in my chest, and live there for the rest of my life.

But life, as it would seem, rarely ever goes according to plan. And God never follows according to mine, He follows according to His. And life happens, it did happen, it is happening. I came home, got a job, a car, meant people and kids, fell in love, lived, fell apart, got my heart broke, found out Africa is just going to have to wait, sunk inside myself. And I think I wanted everything to stay the same until I was ready for it to change. But I'm realizing that I can't do that. That I can't expect the whole world to stand still until I'm ready. and Everything is not meaningless,  I am seeing that now, through watery eyes, we go through things to strengthen us, to draw us closer to God, to grow.

So I open it up again, Ecclesiastes, and I am mediating on the simple phrase; "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

And it's a scary feelings, this letting go. It's the loneliest feeling in the world. I feel like I tend to find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum, that I'm constantly standing when everyone else is sitting. That everyone is looking at me and saying "what the heck is the matter with her?" Like I'm walking down an empty street, listening to the sound of my own footsteps, windows closed, blinds drawn, doors locked against me, and I'm not sure whether I'm walking toward something, or if I'm just walking away.

And I'm finding that my heart tends to swing back and forth between the need for routine and the urge to run. and that's okay. I know that God's got everything under control. I know that deep in my heart, even if at times I fail.

But Christians fail because Christians are people and people, like me, are not perfect. We slip up.  I don't know what else to tell you.

 i am constantly trying to find my feet.

And I am letting things go. I'm learning that it's okay to have unknowns. That it's time to let go of my job, of my car, it's time to let go of love that's not returned, to a life that i've been clinging to, to realize that sometimes I have to let go of the things and the people i so desperately want, to have empty hands to receive the things I so desperately need.

On November 14th 2013 I wrote in my journal; "Jump First, Fear Later." I don't know what happened to the girl that wrote that, but I can tell you now that I am seeing it's not really Faith unless it taste a bit like fear. and that I feel the fear, but leap anyways. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

It's time to move on. It's scary but it's what needs to be done. I'm not running away, I'm running into.

Into life, into possibilities, into new, exciting things, into His calling.

I need to stop holding hands with doubt, and  start letting go and trusting Him more. I need to loosen my grip on all those useless things and curl my fingers around His and jump.


It starts tonight.

I may not be brave, but He makes me courageous.





 Letting go of doubt and Holding on to Him,



HIS and yours,


  Cami

Growing in a Process of Love and Grace.

     I never imagined my story to look like this. Never imagined I'd be here in this moment and all the ones before this. Never thought I would be finding so much love in my heart. Never thought I'd be sharing Jesus in a bookstore in the middle of the Business section. Never thought I'd be leading and sharing Jesus' love with youth. Never thought that I'd be laying on my bedroom floor, my eyes tired, my body tired, my heart heavy, yet so overjoyed. And yet this is where I find myself when things become to heavy to carry. Face down on my bedroom floor. I seem to find rest in this place. Things just seem to get real down here. Things seem to open up, things seem to become lighter. And I imagine that Jesus is laying right beside me, His arm around my shoulders, His tears echoing mine, comforting, understanding, loving.

      And right now I should probably be sleeping. But I can't. Too much is going on in my mind. Too many thoughts. Too many emotions. Too many things. So much Jesus, so much Magnificent, and I just need to climb up in His lap, process through the past couple weeks, and rest my weary bones.

      Jesus must have a "Mary Poppins" bag of grace for me. Sometimes I wonder if He ever wants to knock me upside the head, or shake my shoulders until I can focus straight and see that He is revealing things, that He is working and He has and will continue to prepare me for the work that is to be done in and for His Kingdom.

       Honestly I don't feel like I do enough. I don't feel like I'm qualified to do the work He is calling me to do. I constantly question myself and my heart. Am I doing this for the right reasons? Am I doing this for Jesus? You see, this past weekend I "lead" a youth retreat… and I use the term "lead" extremely lightly, because I didn't do much leading… He did. But I knew there would be battles stepping into that role. because I'm young. Many times it felt like people didn't respect or didn't trust me to do what I was called to do, just for that reason. Because I am young. And I kept going back to the verse in 1 Timothy 4:12 "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers, in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity." It made me lean on Him more, it made me realize that I'm an imperfect person called by a perfect Man.

and He reveled many things to me.

        I can get frustrated sometimes and forget in my emotions what He is calling me to. And He showed me this weekend that when I let go of the thoughts of others and cling to His thoughts and His nudging. Great things will follow.

     
This past weekend I got to work with amazing women, who made me laugh, cry, who prayed over me, encouraged me, and helped me see that my life is worth wasting for the Gospel. I got to meet and love on some amazing young women. I got to see many walk through struggles and come out the other side clinging to His robe. I got to hear testimonies of heart's healed, I got to see walls crumble and the enemy defeated. And that, in the end, triumph's over all my frustrating moments, over all my unqualified thoughts, over everything.

        I also got to see what goodbye feels like again, some of them I will never see again. And I realized that my big goodbye is drawing ever so close, and it's scary, and yet He is magnificent and sometimes it takes snot pouring from my nose, tears drenching my cheeks and being pulled into a room full of woman, them laying hands on me to confirm my calling even further.

      That even if I think I can't. I am wrong. It says in the Bible that God rescues and uses the dirty and the messy and the imperfect. It's all in His grace, the same grace that told David- the little harp playing boy, "You're Mine." to David the murderer adulterer "You're Mine." to Moses the unqualified, stuttering murderer, "You're Mine." to Paul who was also a murderer. He called all of them to Him. Throughout the Bible God calls the messy. The people who when called find excuses, just like me. And He's showing me that yeah, maybe I'm a mess, but I have something to offer.

And He's showing me through these past couple weeks that I am called to Him, called to be His hands and feet to His people, to His children.

       That there are these "little ones" every place. That they are coming, gathering with dirty faces and hurting hearts. That they maybe looking to me and not sure where to go or where else to look. And it's my job to teach them. to teach the people around me to stand firm. to Teach them to cling to Him. To teach them that it is okay to fail, and how to lean on Him to stand back up again. to point them to Jesus. Nothing gives me more joy in that. Nothing gave me more joy these past couple weeks than being with these youth and seeing the way that Jesus moves in them. lives in them, and loves them. Because at the end of the day, Faith is a funny thing. It just turns up when you don't really expect it.

      And I'm realizing that the fairytale I imagined is vastly different in the arms of my Jesus. That I don't have to know everything in order to live a brave and beautiful life. I just need to lean on Him.

That His plans are far greater and His calling on my life is far bigger.

     That I got to experience glimpses into Heaven these past couple weeks, fall in love with strangers, To see that Love is not simply something we feel, it's something that surrounds us, and nothing could ever compare to the love that has surrounded me.

       He is calling me, everyday to be Jesus, He is asking me to sacrifice and let go of things I am holding onto. And I'm realizing, slowly, that it's starting to not feel like a sacrifice, it's starting to feel like love.

   And I think I am just going to curl up with my dog and rest in that love.

A love that takes me anywhere...





Finding Rest,


 HIS and yours,

  Cami

Ripped Quilts and Broken Joy.

"There's no such thing as a painless lesson. They just don't exist. Sacrifices are necessary. You can't gain anything without losing something first, although if you can endure that pain and walk away from it, you'll find that you now have a heart strong enough to over come any obstacle"     -Edward Elric.

God is absolutely, magnificently awe-inspiring. And life is and I think will constantly be a funny sort-a-thing. Just when I think I've got it all figured out, just when I finally begin to plan something, get excited about something, and feel like I know what direction I'm heading in. the paths change, the signs change, the wind blows the other way, north is suddenly south, and east is west, and I feel so lost. and it is so easy to lose my way, to lose direction. And God's constantly hunkering down next to me, saying "look, listen, I am your center, I am your guide. I am that star. Look for me, follow me, and I will guide you home."

And I haven't been writing as much as I used to. It seems now-a-days everyone has a blog and everyone has something to say. And I've been thinking more and more maybe it's time to just hang it all up, call it quits. Put the cap on the pen, push away the crumpled papers, and walk away. I never intended to write for people to read, or for people to follow. I just wanted to write. I write to discover me. to remove the chaos in my brain, the clutter of words, which flow so freely onto paper and make so much more sense to me in ink, rather than in thought.

Maybe I'm not a writer after all. No one ever sat me down and said "Cameron, you're a writer, that's what you are and that's what you will be." They said I was writing material, but never a writer. And I think that as I've been meditating on HIM more and revisiting my life through journals from years past I think it started to become a theme. People constantly telling me what kind of material I have and what kind I don't. "You're teaching material, but you're horrible at being in front of people." "You're writing material, but it's just too raw, too chunky." "You're missionary material, but you hate to fly and you're too shy." "You're marriage material, but definitely don't fit in the 'dateable' category." blah blah blah blah blah… It goes on and on and I'm left clutching onto so many different fabrics, so many different materials, wondering what it all even means.

And a lot of times it seems like I spend too much time stitching up my heart after I've opened it up once again, then stitching up all this "material" I have clutched so tightly in my hands. And it scares me to death to think that one day I might look back at my life and realized that I lived it painfully ordinary. That instead of looking to my north star, to my Jesus, I spent too much time staring down at a mismatched quilt, wondering what it meant.

It wasn't until this last week that I unclenched my hands from all that material, let it fall from my lap and walked forward.

This past week I returned to a place I was in 9 years ago, a place where I first received my calling to spend my life serving God. And I was able to see what I am made of. What HE has made me for.

I got to spend time with amazing young women. Who brought me so much joy, who made me laugh and cry. Who helped me to grow and learn that God has called me to people, no matter where I am at. That my joy in that moment was made complete with these girls, talking and listening to their hearts. These young women are world changers, and I am and have been so blessed to be a small part of their lives this year. No words can express the huge amount of love I've harbored in my heart for each one of them. I hold them close, which makes this joy so hard, which makes this joy feel so broken. because I know for the moment I am here, but moments are fleeting and when God's voice beckons me away, I must go.

But in these moments of broken joy I see that tattered, ripped quilt down at my feet. And Jesus is throwing a robe around my shoulders, That I keep asking Him why I risk losing so much love. Loving this way can be risky and yet… great love is risky. That constantly we are told to take love and use it to gain things, for an advantage. But Love is not for gain, love is for losing. That to be a leader, I must be a servant. That to gain, I must lose. To toss my love across the seas, across oceans of heart and tidal waves of hands. That I must live radical in the now, with what I have. because living radical isn't about the place I live but it's about how I love. That I will not be waiting until the next time I'm on an airplane to risk love. I do it now. To these girls, to my other co- leaders, to my co-workers, to my family, to my friends, to every person I come in contact with.

Because God's love never allows dust to settle in my heart!

I must risk my life. Because ultimately I know I will be totally secure in Jesus. In whatever He is calling me towards, in the now, in the moments, and in the ones to come. That if this service and sacrifice will make Jesus look big, if it will fulfill Jesus' purposes, if it will communicate Jesus to the people around me and to the world. Than I will be all for it.

And it's hard and it's horrible when your heart is somewhere your body is not, but Jesus is calling me to Him now, my heart in His hands, teaching me, listening to me, crying with me, cradling with me, talking to me, reminding me that He is the ultimate love giver. That all the materials people tried to sew onto me do not define me. That His plan and purpose is awesome and where I am now is where I am suppose to be. To wait on Him.

So here I am, standing in the midst of a tattered, ripped quilt and wrapping myself tighter into His robes. He is cradling my broken joy close in His arms, And I'm ready. I'm ready to risk it. to be a servant, to lose, to have my life wrecked beyond recognition.

Here I am. Not unsteady, but a little unsure. Not impatient, but unmoving. Not hiding. Waiting.


Dancing in Joy and Tattered Quilts,


 HIS and yours,


  Cami

The Chaos Inside...

      “There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won’t remember and that she can’t even let herself think about because that’s when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it’s always raining a slow and endless drizzle.
You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sing, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.”  
                                - Neil Gaiman

     

         How do you calm a storm, when it seems the waves have overtaken all. How do you swim through tides that grab hold of ankles and pull you undertow. How do you breathe the water out through your lungs without it burning in the process. How do you contain the chaos underneath, when above seems so calm? My thought exist much like the chaos below the oceans surface, seemingly quiet while and entire universe scurries about beneath the deep blue water. And sometimes I can't control it, sometimes I can't contain it. Sometimes they overwhelm me and I wonder how to express them to people without fear of being judge, or sounding crazy, or wondering if they will finally lose their idea of me and just see me, as I am, with no pretense. 

     And my heart aches and burns for good thoughts, for a clear mind; unadulterated. But lies sneak in, and sadness comes in waves and washes through like heavy tides, and anger seeps through cracks I thought were sealed tight with glue. And sometimes I just have to let go and say, I'm broken, in need of healing, in need of grace and I'm tired of trying to be this wonderful person, this ideal person, that I don't want to be indifferent, I just want to be honest.

    Honest in a way that says this past year has been one of the roughest I've ever experienced, that since coming home I've struggled constantly with losing sight of who Jesus is. Because all too often I don't see Him here, and it scares me and burdens me and makes me wonder where my eyes are looking, or if I'm looking at all. Since coming home I've ached with a deep unexplainable sadness, a longing for something more than what is and as I continue to cry out to God and search out my calling more and more, I'm seeing that I've spent years "at home" meeting people without ever knowing them and that hurts.

      And it hurts the way it does because I have so many words in my head, and there are too many ways to describe the way I feel. I keep crying out to God and asking Him where to start, where to go, and this year has been an echo of stillness. And I feel like I will never have this luxury of a dull ache. That I must suffer through the intricacies of feeling too much.

   Because I've seen too much, know too much, heard stories and fell in love with countries and people so so different from me, I've lost touch with who I am supposed to be here. That I have become a drifter, and as lonely as that can be sometimes, it is also remarkably freeing. That I am learning I never have to define myself in terms of anyone else, and yet when I'm here I find I do, I find that I forget too easily who God has called me to be and instead try to lean into what people are asking me to be. 

 
    I don't want to. I want to see Jesus here, but I feel clouded and weighed down. I have seen Jesus more clearly in the dirt and grime. But everyone here, in their facades, are scrubbed clean. I've seen Jesus in the people being hurt and mistreated, of the poor, the weak, the sick, the meek hearted and broken people. I have seen Jesus there more than I have in any church building here. In the sterile, clean, perfect environments we try so hard to keep as a "church."

   
       And I've never been so hurt and burnt by people and churches since coming home, the embrace that is talked about was an arms length pat on the head. The love and support that they flock to "new-comers" is disregarded to a lost and wandering single young woman, searching for her heart that has been lost to another country. It's hard to trust a church that proclaims to be Jesus, when Jesus is the last thing I've ever seen. 

   
        It's hard swimming through these oceans of thought, when I'm coming up to one of the biggest decisions in my life and God is pushing me and calling me forth and I crave for companionship, the way He created me for, for someone to grab my hand squeeze it tight and say "I love you, I support you 100 % and I will be here for you, while you're away and when you return." But I can't, because life happens and two years is a long time to ask for someone to wait, to love you when you're not around, and to lean in close and watch you go through your high and lows. It's to much to ask for… Isn't it? I don't know. 

   
        Maybe, just maybe, this is the sacrifice I kept feeling I was going to have to make. To look at my life and the people I love and have fallen in love with and ask them to not wait, to move on. Because who know's what could happen, and it scares the life out of me and keeps me questioning God. What about my family, what about my future, what about my relationships….

     And then I realize the problem…. I'm constantly using the word my, or mine… when in the end it's not mine… it's His, it and them and everything in between is His. It always has been and always will be. And I just keep testing my heart and listening to people who help me grow and teach me new ways of thinking. And Jesus keeps nudging me closer to that day where I don't have to wait any longer. He's leading me in this direction for a reason, He's putting these people in my life for a reason, no one, no thing is an accident and I just need to soak it all in, try and calm the ocean of my mind, ask Him to calm my storms and step out of the boat and enjoy the moments now. 

 
     This past year including these last couple months I've experience so many beautiful and strange things. I've been so joyful, and also super sad, I've learned about love and heartbreak, I've grown to understand my calling. I've seen the importance of my family, and the miraculous way God puts people in my life at the exact times I need them, even if it hurts. 

 
       It's been a roller coaster of a ride. But Life is kind of an uphill battle, like climbing a mountainside, some days I will have to go over rocks and messy foothills and other days will be a nice scenic hike, but no matter the way, eventually I will reach that top and see how far He has taken me.

        Until that day, I'll continue to attempt to live the way He has called me. To Love freely, with reckless abandonment, embracing those around me, whoever they may be, wherever I may be. I know He's got it all figured out, so I'm letting Him calm the chaos and take control of this worn out weathered storm. 

    Seeking Calm in the Storm,

   HIS and yours,

       Cami