The Whole Truth

Upon further investigation, I don’t think I gave you the whole story. You see, a few months ago, everything changed and all the sudden all of my theories and all of my rationalizing couldn’t explain it away. A few months ago my Aunt & Uncle, who have courageously tried to get pregnant for sometime now miscarried their twins, Billie & Miles, at almost 6 months into her pregnancy. And just a few weeks later I watched dear friends of mine say goodbye to their little boy, Tyler James Rumley.

What was remarkable to see in Jerrod & Jen Rumley was their response. Faith and honesty in the midst of what can only be inadequately described as an utter tragedy. I tried for a few months to write something about it, something about them, but I couldn’t. I just felt like there was nothing significant to say after that. Words didn’t express enough. They couldn’t express the ache in my heart for all of them. They couldn’t express how completely pissed I was that this was happening. And they couldn’t express how helpless it is to sit by and watch such an injustice occur. And I watched them get up and give glory to God and I realized; I had no idea what faith really was.

So I got pissed. And more pissed. And months went by and I was still really pissed. Why would this happen? What possible benefit could there be to this? How would a good God ever allow this to happen? So pretty much for months, this has been internally circling around. And even a month on another continent couldn’t change it.

This week I had a tiny breakthrough. In reading a, let’s be honest, sorta boring passage in Deuteronomy, about the law, I discovered something. God is a God who loves justice. He has blessings and curses laid out for the Israelites that are so clear and quite frankly fair. That’s when I realized, God loves justice, and we’re the ones who don’t. And we can’t. Follow me here for a sec. As soon as we sinned, so long ago, we forfeited our right for justice, for a fair world. It’s the same injustice that has caused me to question the character of God by which I am saved. If not for the injustice of God these tragedies would not be allowed, but if it were not for His injustice, none of us would be saved. So we’re forced to live by faith. Trusting what we do not see played out in reality and what we aren’t able to rationalize into something positive, productive, better, or fair. We are forced to trust Him.

Honestly, I’m still pissed for them. I still don’t get it. It will still never be ok or make sense, but it isn’t ok to Him either. If I wish to remain upset I can only be upset with the sinful nature I was born into and the unfair, cruel world I must exist in, for what I’m sure I will learn someday, isn’t that long at all.

That’s the Truth. The Whole Truth. For now.

Confession

Have you ever had a seasonal friend? One of those people that enter your life and for a short time they are a large part of your life. They feel like they'll always be there and then, all the sudden, you drift apart. Maybe that thing or person you had in common isn't there anymore, but you live in Fresno, which means, you'll run into this person. Most likely at Target. It's not that you don't like this person anymore, you just don't know how to even talk to them anymore.

That's kinda what this blog has become for me. Like that friend I had a few months ago. The one I thought would definitely be in my wedding some day, but now, I can't even remember what it is we had in common. How did we get here? Maybe I was still unsure how much I wanted to expose myself in such a public manner. Maybe I was scared to be so vulnerable. Or maybe, I'm just not that interesting. Either way, I got so far away from this thing I wasn't sure how to come back, where to start again.

So, I've decided to do the hard thing, at least for me. Instead of just letting this thing slowly die and becoming another one of those people that started a blog, I've decided to revive this one. To rebuild. Hope you'll still join me, after all, we did say we'd be best friends forever.

Cam