It is well...

Welcome to the wonderful mind of Katherine, just thought I'd share a bit of today before I got down to what I wanted to say. Thanks to some wonderful counsel from a dear friend of mine, I've started reading Ecclesiastes. What is kind of soul crushing is that Cameron and I were in the middle of reading Ecclesiastes before he passed away (don't worry I'm getting there). But I figure faith is a bit like riding a horse, if you fall off it's either you get back up quickly or be afraid of it forever. So here's my attempted to get back up on the horse as much as I know it's going to hurt and I don't want to. So I opened the book we were reading together and started where we left off. The scripture was comforting in a way, but when I got to answering the study question I just got really mad, real spiteful, and real sassy with God about my pain of losing my boyfriend. I didn't make it through all the questions, and the ones I did I was really angry I wasn't doing them with Cameron and getting to hear his answer. So I just cut it short and let myself fume for a few seconds. Then I looked at pictures of cats and it made me slightly happier again - lets be honest there's not a whole lot of happy right now. But if anyone needs a pick me up cats usually do the trick.

Today I read the famous passage from Ecclesiastes naming the fact that everything under the sun has an opposite, and both of them have a time and place in the story of God and us. Everything is used in the grand picture God is painting. There's a story to be told, and every story has good and bad. I was driving to Blanco today to meet with my CYMT coach, and My Story by Big Daddy Weave came on. I was hit by the not so new realization that my life just had a huge plot twist in my story with God, and it's significant and probably a big marker in what is to come from here. So for those just tuning in, here's a brief glimpse of my story with Cameron Murphy (I apologize to those who have heard it over and over again).

Cameron and I at Magnolia Market in Waco, Texas

That's me, that's Cameron. We met in June 20, 2016 at Canyon Lake UMC where I am serving currently as youth and children's minister. I'd heard lots of stories about Cameron, and honestly pictured him as a little different then he comes off. It's VBS day one and I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, three weeks into my brand new job. The boy walks in the room and I'm literally struck with two thoughts almost simultaneously: "whoa he's kinda scary looking" and "wow who is this dude, he's pretty dang cute." Cameron was six foot five inches tall to my five foot two inches, wore a little more black and gray than I was used to, had gaged ears and a double piecing in one. Add the long black hair and beard to that and he was definitely not someone I had pictured myself falling in love with, but I'm jumping a head of myself. Cameron came to run our media for VBS and it's probably already obvious but caught my interest from day one.

The week of VBS I spent a lot of time with Cameron, and as much as he was completely opposite of me, I had this incredible overwhelming feeling that I was supposed to know him, that he was supposed to play an important part in my life. Each day he'd share a little bit more about himself, and each day a little piece of him fit into the list that God and I had made together about the type of man I wanted to spend my life with some day. Not every part of him fit in my ideal person, but the big important things he had. By the end of VBS week I was crushing hard on this boy

Fast forward a few weeks and our relationship has kicked it up a notch. We started spending significant amounts of time together and dug way deep into figuring out who the other person was. I asked Cameron if I could cook him dinner one night and he happily obliged. He also offered to help me hang some things on my wall after hearing me complain about the fact that I didn't know how to hang a shelf. So the night before I was about to head out of town for a CYMT orientation I cooked Cameron a pork tenderloin and hung shelves and pictures for me.

Cameron loved to tell this story and my heart is aching because I wish he could be the ones telling it now, but that's not how my story is written. We were having a deep conversation about something he'd asked my advice on. As I'm talking he's hanging things on my wall and, as I found out later, not listening to anything I was saying at all. The way he tells it, the whole time I was talking all he could think about was me, and the issue at hand didn't even matter any more; but I did. He hangs the last shelf and we stepped back to look at this newly complete wall and just how perfect it looked with everything on it.

A few additions, but here's the wall he helped put together.

We took a second to admire his work and just how well everything fit together in it's place. The shelf he put up really just completed the look of the wall. At the same time we looked at each other and agreed it was perfect. What he'd tell you is in that moment he knew he didn't want to hang shelves for anyone else the rest of his life -- his words I promise. 

He tells me he went home that night, and in a way it had never happened before, he just couldn't get his mind off of me. The next night I'm at orientation for CYMT and after a long day of stuff I crawl into bed and look at my phone and have the following messages: 

Cameron: did God give you my heart?

Cameron: Wow, that was stupid. Never mind, ignore that message. Please focus on your retreat.

Did God give you my heart? I've contemplated on his question for nine months, and looking back on it now I'd say confidently yes. God handed me this beautiful heart in this man of God who needed to be unconditionally loved so badly and said show him who I am. I'd like to say I did it perfectly, but I know I didn't all the time. But grace favors effort. To be entrusted with a person in this way is something I still am trying to make sense of. 

The next day I went over to his place and bet you'd never guess, we DTRed (for those unfamiliar with Christianese/Camp lingo DTR=Define the Relationship) and made it official. Somewhere in the course of that conversation he also technically proposed, but I told him I needed to move a little slower, no offense of course. But that was the start of us, and the start of a beautiful and difficult time of laughter, tears, unconditional love, fights, reconciliations, and doing life together in a way I've never done with another person. I'll keep sharing stories as time goes on, but I'm going to pause for here now and talk a bit about the last week of my story. 

On February 21, 2017 Cameron went to be with Jesus. There's been lots of questions on what happened, and truly the only fact of importance was he fell asleep and peacefully went on to claim his promise of eternal life. I've had too many people to count ask what happened, and I understand why so many people want to know. I've come to the conclusion that yes, there may be an answer to why his body failed, and someday we may know exactly why. But the knowledge of why his body stopped working won't bring him back and to me won't bring much peace. 

But here's what does bring me peace. Cameron had figured out what so many people, so many strong believers struggle to figure out. He knew the promise of heaven, and he knew the brokenness of the world. He knew he had a part to play in shining Christ to the broken world, but that this wasn't his home. He struggled, and battled, and fought with the vessel he had here on earth. His mind and his body were flawed, as all of ours are. But he knew that those flaws pointed even more to the promise of heaven and that made him look forward to it even more. Cameron was ready to go, but Cameron had been ready to go for a long time; not because he was tired of living, but because he was ready to truly live. 

Life on earth is fleeting, it's numbered, and will come to an end. But a life with Jesus in heaven goes on forever. Cameron recognized this just as fully as he recognized that our time here on earth has a purpose -- to glorify God in all we do. He was ready to spend the days he had here doing just that, but he was also just as ready to start the life we are promised in paradise. What brings me joy that almost surpasses all understanding is that what Cameron has wanted more than anything he has now. He's walking with Jesus, he's spending his existence praising God and nothing else. He's not hurting anymore in any sense of how we understand hurting. I wish the peace I have about his passing upon everyone who has a chance to read this, whether you knew Cameron or not. We are not made for this world, we're made to pass through it for a time. Our true purpose is to glorify God, here on earth and beyond it. Cameron has fulfilled his purpose in every way possible. 

Stories are full of both pain, and happiness; contentment and searching; satisfaction and dissatisfaction. But here's the conclusion I came to today. It can be well with my soul at the same time I am mourning the loss of the man I loved. I can stand before the Lord and say what you have for me is good and perfect, but it still hurts. I can grieve, and the Lord will grieve along with me. Hebrews 4:14-16 tells about our high priest who is able to empathize with us because he has come down to be among us. He felt the feels, he lived life on earth. But even more he felt the feels and lived the life, but he did it without sin. We know that our Jesus understands our weakness because he lived it as well. We know our Jesus made a way for us to eternal life despite the fact that we can't go through this life without sinning. We're all promise the same salvation through knowing Christ and believing in him. Cameron knew it, and I know it. 

My Jesus morns along with me, but my Jesus is also why it is still well with my soul.  Tonight I work on feeling Jesus morn with me, to know that grace favors effort, and it can be well with my soul amongst the grief. There is a time for everything, and right now the time is to grieve. And it is good; because it is all to his glory, and my good. 

Thanks to Aiden Diaz for taking our pictures. We did a shoot shortly after Thanksgiving to give pictures to Cameron's mom for Christmas. This is Landa Park in New Braunfels, Texas.