It All Ends With Love

Cause you gotta have the love.

Bad title, I know.

But it’s true though.

Let’s check with the Bible, which by definition is THE BOOK, the book that happens to reveal everything that goes down from eternity past to eternity future. At its start, we see a couple. Most important though, it also ends with a couple.

A couple very much in love, in fact.

So if you’re aching to know how it all ends…

I just told you. It all ends in love.

Don’t believe me? I have a real life, microcosmic example.

So I’m driving my car, contemplating the deep things of life, considering all the Lord has done this academic year and-

Yup. You guessed it. Much like the end of the Bible, it just all ended with me loving the Lord more.

I think Psalm 45 kind of pulls the experience together.

The psalmist begins by praising the King, then moves to praising the queen and also the daughters of the king. But in praising all these members of the court, all the praise goes back to (and is really for) the King.

So as the final week of classes at UT Austin was peppered with last this’s and last that’s, in glowing testimony after glowing testimony of what the Lord had revealed and shown, all the praise and glory returned to our glorious King. This year, people touched the living God in their spirit for the first time, got baptized into the Triune God, learned how to speak for God and speak forth God, saw something of the Body of Christ, tasted and saw that the Lord’s word was good, and touched something of the Chief Shepherd’s heart to shepherd His sheep. Plus, there was the epic conclusion to the book of Psalms, consisting of offering the consummate praise to the Lord.

And still, there is much, much more.

A line of a hymn comes to mind at this point: Oh what can we say now except, HALLELUJAH!!!

Outwardly, that’s really the only reaction to have. But inwardly…

It’s really hard not be desperately, terribly in love with the One behind all this (insert hymn 1154 from the hymn book).

Even when He already has big plans for the summer, and you’re still lingering in the year’s afterglow.

Sigh. But then again, He’s wonderful, and His presence means everything, so in a few days or so, you’ll be ready to do it all over again.

Because of love, we can forget even the best of things, and in love, stretch forward to that which is before.

So on we go. Praise our altogether lovely, unrivaled King!

Knocked Down, Not Out

No matter how low things can get (lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon wheel rut? Yup, been there), it seems that in the christian life, you can only be so low for so long, and somehow, some way, you’re back up again. Which reminds me of a verse:

Micah 7:8: Do not rejoice against me, O my enemy; When I fall, I will rise up; When I sit in the darkness, Jehovah will be a light to me.

Ha, take that one, enemy! This is just our case because this is the life that we have. Don’t believe me? It’s all over Romans 8, it’s even its own law. Ever heard of the Law of the Spirit of Life? That’s our inward guarantee that among many, many, many other things, the experience of resurrection life is one moment away. Also, someone shared this with me today, and it actually produced a bit of a smile:

Psalms 125: 1-2:

Those who trust in Jehovah are like Mount Zion, Which cannot be moved but abides forever. Jerusalem – mountains surround her; And Jehovah surrounds His people From now and to eternity.

Text message portion: “Zion signifies the overcomers. To overcome, we don’t have to be strong or overly spiritual. We just have to be those who trust in the Lord.”

Wow. That impressed me. Why’s that, you might ask?

Well, times are hard, strength is low, sleep is impossible, and overall cheerfulness is at an all time (here’s that word again) low. Sometimes, I wonder how long the Lord is going to let this video play until some remote control action happens. A pause would be nice. Also, it doesn’t help that among His many other charming characteristics (that wasn’t sarcasm, being serious), He certainly is a God who hides Himself.

So I guess I can stop my Charlie Brown- like screeches for help.

Even when YET AGAIN, I’ve been stalemated into a state of inertia by His masters’ level chess playing ability.

I can’t move, manipulate, plot, dream, or have my own way.

But…

I can trust Him. At least that’s what all these other fellow believers-soldier like people are telling me. And they seem to have carried me this far.

So for now, I’m not completely down, just maybe subway level, but learning how to trust Him, and learning how to lean on others. A LOT.

Maybe I’ll be up again. In like, 3 days, or something. Or so I’ve been led to believe.

Going For the Goal, Not the Gold

Different phrases permeate different childhoods, and as I look back, this had to be the mantra from mine: Go for the gold.

Trite phrase, kind of a stupid phrase, but as silly as it was, throughout all my sports events, academic competitions, and artistic endeavors, this was what was flowing through my veins.

Yes, I actually did get the gold one. And the silver, and the bronze...

As a kid, getting one of these seemed enough to retire on. What else could anyone want, especially if you had trained a big chunk of your (young) life to get one. But as I got older, it seems the past gold could never be the final goal, and there was always more gold, more satisfying gold to go after.

I’m sure about now, some of you are thinking, “Wow, how empty. I’m glad she probably learned her lesson at a young age.”

Well, kinda. Now it’s 2012, and my current desire for gold? This little beauty:

It should be mine. It's just not fair.

I mean come on. I drink 30 cups of coffee in like, a week. I should’ve been the first person to have this.  So just what do you get for having this exactly? Well, I could tell you, but let’s have a little fun here:

Person: Wow a gold card! So Camille, you had to spend like, close to $100 to get this. So do you get free drinks now?

Camille: Well, I think the 15th drink is free.

Person: Umm, okay. What else?

Camille: I get free soy milk.

Person: You don’t even like soy milk. You said it tastes like plants.

Camille: Well, I get free syrup.

Person: What if you just want house coffee?

Camille: I could put syrup in it.

Person: Who would do that if they just want house coffee?

Camille: I can use the wifi for free for 2 hours.

Person: You have free data ALL the time on your phone. And you can use that ANYWHERE.

(Camille thinks about it)

Camille: I can show people.

Person: I think you need to consider your finances more carefully.

Camille: I get a free coffee on my birthday.

Person: You don’t even like Starbucks coffee!

I think that’s a clear enough picture. As depressing as that reality check is, all that glitters really isn’t gold. I mean, honestly, Lord only knows what substance gilds that card. But  that’s kinda like all things in life. No matter how much gold or how many of our own goals we can attain to, they can’t completely satisfy. Sigh.

But I have good news. In verse form.

Philippians 3:14: I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward.

Wow, God has called us to something? This definitely merits looking into. The goal, here? Well, this goal is THE goal, the only goal that the Apostle Paul thought worth pursuing. In comparison, everything else to him was not only insufficient, but it was garbage, refuse. Paul counted everything (good things and bad things) as loss so that nothing would hold him back in his pursuit of Christ. And though Paul had already had many experiences of Christ, his whole life was a quest to know and gain more of Christ.

Hmm. I’ve gained some Christ in the past, and I have to say it was definitely worth it. But even as we pursue, we are pursuing towards a goal of gaining the utmost, fullest enjoyment of Christ in the future.

That’s a double pay-off.

I have to say, as I slaved away for all those medals, they definitely didn’t contribute to any further enjoyment years later. In fact, I actually have no idea where all of them even are. And that, at some point, could’ve been deemed my life’s work.

At some point, I said. There is a happy ending to this after all: Nowadays, my main pursuit and satisfaction isn’t directed towards old dreams and Starbucks cards, but in the Christ that is the only true gain, goal, prize, and enjoyment, now and forever.

The Moment: Learning To Be a Christian in College

The spot where it all went down. Hallelujah for public transportation.

Time for A Technicolor Moment blast from the past. From my college days, to be exact.

Just How Did I Meet Christians on Campus?      

Let’s set the scene here. Imagine: You’re walking through campus (you may or may not be lost at this point), and while you’re looking for a bus, you run into someone and they ask you:

“Have you ever thought about the meaning of human life?”

Out of all the things they could have asked, done, or tried to sell me, THAT is what they said.

The thing is, that’s precisely what had been consuming my thoughts for about the past year.

Perhaps a little history insertion is needed here: I grew up in a christian home, learned to love the Lord at a young age, got older, still loved the Lord, got to college, still acknowledged and loved the Lord on some level, but wasn’t really looking for Him at UT. I mean through my christian parents, friends, relatives, surely I had all my needs met as far as knowing the Lord.  What I had been looking for, however, was friends, an electrical engineering degree, and a lucrative job at Google writing programs. By the middle of my first semester, I had made pretty decent progress on all those things.

College: Expect the Unexpected

And yet, by the end of that semester, I was done with all those friends I thought I wanted (or rather, they were done with me), I wanted nothing to do with hardware and circuits and thus the E.E. world wanted nothing to do with me (I later found my home in the world of one E – English ), and my dream job of being at Google remained, sadly, just that. But far worse than all that, I was just plain unhappy, disillusioned, and unfulfilled. I remember telling the Lord that if all I was going to get after going through everything was some stupid degree, UT could have it. Nothing was worth this.

There. I believe that paints a clear picture of my state of being at the time.

That Not So Little Question

So  back to the crux.

What is the meaning of human life?

Well, oddly enough, it turned out to be something I had all along. But it took running into some faithful believers on campus and getting involved with Christians on Campus for me to realize it. It sort of reminds me of this children’s book I read; You know this awesome place that has everything you need, and you’re there, standing at the door, but…

You have no clue how to open it.

I had always heard about God, known God, loved God, but I didn’t know how to get to God.

I didn’t know how to enjoy Him.

And most important, I didn’t know I could pursue Him. In my thought, He was God and I was me, and our somewhat separate existence seemed unchangeable.

In Christians on Campus, not only were all these barriers broken down, but what made it real was all these other college students, kinda different but kinda the same, all wanting what I wanted. Sure, we were at UT to get this degree and do that program and such but…we all wanted God. After months of seeing what didn’t satisfy, through singing to the Lord, enjoying with fellow believers, and mining the riches in the Word, I finally found what gave my life meaning.

Because the Son sets us free indeed! (John 8:36)

It’s funny. I had been a christian all my life, but I had never known how to live the christian life until I came to college.

But what about living the christian life post undergrad?

Well, that’s another story…

And the Heisman Goes To….

Watch out Camille's life. It's getting fierce up in here. Spiritually, that is.

What? She’s talking about sports?

Let’s not be silly. As many of my writing teachers have cautioned,  “Know your strengths. Know your audience.”

Well, at least the first part is applicable. Not so sure if we’ve reached a critical enough mass to use the word “audience”.

My two readers, don’t be offended.

Getting to the main point: Once upon a time, a friend of mine used a curious phrase to denote the manner in which he was removing certain things from his life.

The verb he coined: Heismaned.

At the time, I chuckled at the visual imagery of it, then was kind of appalled (there may have been people involved), then kind of forgot about it.

But in light of encountering a few barriers in my christian pursuit…

It may be time for some things to be divinely heismaned.

For example, I spend a lot of time wandering in the wilderness of my soul. A LOT of time. And this week, I had to confess to myself that I like it in there. There’s tons of interesting material to occupy me for hours, and furthermore, everything’s already the way I like it. But after burrowing deeper and deeper into the morass that is my complicated and draining psychological being, I eventually had the sense that I both need and can reject this.

So yes, one can always abandon the soul to re-occupy the loveliness that is the human spirit. But what to do when blindsided once more by these demanding, yet completely unnecessary thoughts and ideas?

They simply must be heismaned. Strongly heismaned. By the Spirit, of course, not by the sheer force of my will. Been there. Done that. Perhaps we’ll revisit that in later struggles, but today, there is light, sight, and revelation, and thus a wiser, more dependent Camille.

Kinda reminds me of stanza 2 of this hymn I once heard:

Dig away, dig away, dig away,
All my vain imaginations dig away!
Dig away, dig away, dig away,

All my vain imaginations dig away!

All my dreams have to go
That His life may flow… Hallelujah!
Dig away, dig away, dig away,
All my vain imaginations dig away!

A little extremist, perhaps, but the results speak for themselves.

Current tally: A life filled with the reality of my spirit makes a mockery of the life of vanity in my soul.

It’s been a good few days.

May the Lord continue to be and strengthen the heismaning ability in my being.

Oh What A Life

Running. My old nemesis.

Ah, the christian life. It’s quite a life.

How am I doing, you might ask?

Terrible. But thanks for asking.

It seems no matter what metaphor you use; the christian life being a race, the christian life being our walking/ working with God, etc, I’m not doing so great.

Come to think of it, I’m not very good at exercise these days in general. Hmm. Might be related.

It’s funny; I’m not sure how a person who spent seven years running on relay teams could do this badly in the most important race in life. I mean, I know it’s just a shadow but surely, there was something useful to pick up.

What am I talking about exactly?

Well, long story short, this friend and I who have a long history of picking at each other may have actually hit a point of no return.

In brief, I won. I also may have offended them. In fact, I’m sure I did.

So now, I have a wounded friend (who may be hostile when angry, so that’s also my fault), an unanswered apology (which I managed with much diplomacy), and at least seventeen other serious problems that couldn’t possibly be explained here.

Sigh. The irony is, I just finished reading the Normal Christian Life.

Perhaps things will normal-up soon.

I just appreciate that in these moments, it’s not my life that I have to be utterly fixated with, but it’s good to remember that I can and should focus on another life. And this life, in Hebrews 7, conquers every obstacle and brings us through every trial. What’s more, trial by trial, I’m actually being more constituted with this life. Now that’s promising. Even for people like me.

This life has been tried, tested, approved, and what’s more, it’s bringing me all the way to the finish: glory.

Hmm. What a life indeed.

My Dear Friend, Failure

From God's point of view, there's another side to failure

Once upon a time, when I was a wee little Camille, I had to sit down, every night, and read something with my mother. Whether it was for school or some book that she thought was beneficial to us (“Gifted Hands”- NOT an elementary school read), we just had to log in some time reading. And since I was a fantastic reader, as opposed to my competition (my much younger brother and sister), I rather enjoyed these times.

Getting to my point.

Anyway, one night, my gradeschool self comes across the word “critique”, and of course by then, having extensive knowledge of what sound ALL letters make (thanks to my boxes full of little readers, phonics cards, letter ladders  and so forth- no joke), I bravely sound it out, and come up with “critic-cue.” So as the good child needing confirmation, I look expectantly at my mother for the “hit or miss” face (totally expecting the hit, by the way), and to my surprise….

She laughs at me. For a good two minutes.

This situation being a first, I have no clue what to do. I feel embarrassed, I get a little frustrated, I think “Maybe she didn’t hear me correctly”; the thoughts ran the gamut here.  I think at some point I even attempted to laugh with her. It seemed that long.

But when she was done, she just smiled at me, told me how to pronounce it correctly, and we went on reading. The aftermath of the event wasn’t nearly so dramatic. But still, I never forgot that. And you best believe I will not soon stumble over a “qu” setup again.

Getting to my point of points, I feel like the Lord is like that a lot. He’s just faithful to expose us again and again. I’m NOT saying the Lord is just on pins and needles so He can be in hysterics when we fail.

I’m just saying He loves us. And when we fail, He lovingly shows us we failed. The purpose? That we would go on together, gaining more of Him in the process.

Why the topic of failure? I don’t know, perhaps it’s a specialty of mine, especially now that I’m driving (Today’s episode: Camille and the “Do Not Enter” Section of the Highway. Okay, I didn’t actually enter it, but if I explained what I did instead, it might have been safer to enter it. Anyway. Another cry for prayer here, people). Or maybe it’s just impressive to see the wisdom of our God. When we fail, we often feel so separated from the Lord. But it’s in those times where we can be more open than we’ve ever been, allowing the Lord the way to add Himself into us in a way that could have been impossible before.

Hmm. Kinda like being some hotshot reader kid, who realizes she needs help from her somewhat cool, but definitely more well-read mother.

Except the Lord is super cool. So cool, in fact, that He’s making us as cool as He is, one failure at a time.

Good Times! (Bad music plays on a piano somewhere…)

Timeless friendship, timeless adeventures

“I wanted you to know, I love the way you laugh…”

The opening line to one of the many, but by far one of my favorite songs we ever sang together.

Who is this we?

Well, in a world much like this one, except about 24 years younger…. two people were born.

And they happened to become the bestest of friends.

And as the semester is about to start up and seemingly no one is in town…..

They were in town. And adventure ensued.

Pause- okay, back to normal tense.

Sushi, pizza, tres leches and several purchases later (of which was said, “In for a penny, in for a pound…”), I’m starting to piece together how much these little moments matter. A year ago, I thought things could never be like this again. Six months ago, I would’ve doubted it.

An hour ago, we were laughing in Whole Foods about stupid things that happened in high school.

Thirty minutes ago, as we were (dum-dum-dum!) dancing in the car to gospel music, I realized I missed everything about you.

Ten minutes ago,  as I was laughing about what you just said, I discovered I need you, and that it’s no accident or coincidence that we ever became friends.

It’s funny. No matter how different you are, no matter how much you fight, no matter how much they know about you that it’s suffocating-

C.M: You’re wearing pants?
Me: It’s cold!
(Looks at the shoes)
C. M: Eh, same Camille.

You don’t outgrow friends. Especially good ones.

Today was an awesome day… and I haven’t laughed that loud in restaurant in some time.

Thank You Lord for Your wisdom in placing us with one another!

The Answer, is Yes

You know how when you really DON’T want to see someone….

They’re always the person you run into?

Hm. There’s a verse about that.

Right. Hope you read it.

Well, this morning, as I was running…

I came face to face with the Triune God. Don’t get me wrong, I love our encounters, I live for them, actually, but today…

It was different. Allow me to paint the picture here.

In our church, we’re going over the book of Psalms and how God’s desire is to gain us (the church) as His house that He may ultimately gain the whole earth. So different people were speaking; all very touching and enjoyable about God’s house, God’s need, overcomers, and all that stuff,  and then someone shared something a brother had said:

“Satisfaction is only in the Triune God Himself. I don’t look for it in my marriage, I don’t expect it to come through my children… I don’t look for anything outward to satisfy my being. Only my God, my processed and consummated Triune God is my satisfaction.”

And that’s when everything was different.

Recently, I’ve been consumed with all these things; thoughts about my current situation, my future, especially my marriage (uh-oh)…but suddenly I just had the sense-

I don’t care.

I. Do. Not. Care. Anymore.

In all my consideration to, for example, be married to the perfect person, with all the perfect attributes, and all the perfect actions… the real consideration that exists in this universe is not even on the same plane.

Simply, if I’m looking to my marriage or whatever to find satisfaction-

I will never find it. Conversely, if satisfaction is not in all these things that I’m consumed with-

Why be consumed with them?

Something else that brother said also spoke to me:

“Will there ever be any deep happiness, any deep satisfaction, anywhere.? [The answer]: No and yes. No to anything natural, no to anything human…but a big, wonderful yes to the Triune God.”

So today, and for now, by the Lord’s mercy, I cease my running.

To everything else, I say, I do not care.

To my dear, beloved, Triune God, I say yes.

Gain everything that is in Your heart.

If U Can’t Dance

So I woke up  this morning, somewhat tired,  somewhat delirious, but having the distinct thought:

Today, I feel like dancing.

We all have these moments, let’s not feign like we don’t. Even David danced while he was KING. And despite the fact his wife would despise him in her heart, David really thought this moment was worth dancing away. With all his might, in fact.

So in my moment, as I considered David’s moment, I had to ask myself:

“What in the world is there to dance about?”

Well, standing in a  bedroom of the sisters house in Houston, but enjoying not a physical dwelling place but rather, my fellow members of God’s dwelling place, I concluded that there was, in fact, MUCH to dance about. After all, if we check the context, David wasn’t just dancing to get some exercise; this was all related to the Ark. And furthermore, this all culminated with one man on earth who had the same desire in his heart that God had for His house.

And that man was a dancer.

So after my somewhat divine episode of dance, I was reminded that I was in the best place, doing the best thing, and even that this was exactly where I needed to be: Living a life for God’s house, to build up God’s house.

Not a bad realization on a Saturday morning.

So….if you can’t dance in the middle of your situation…

Spend some time around the Ark.