chosen // Memphis 2015 snapshot

Her hand clung to mine and then suddenly ripped away. She was yelling, and honestly, I don't remember what she was so mad about. Whatever it was, I was annoyed with how she never seemed to listen and she always seemed to want something and she wanted it now. I huffed and got down at eye level with her to sternly tell her that she needed to stop RIGHT this second because I wouldn't have this kind of behavior on the walk home. She pulled her hands from mine again and I could tell she was about to hit me. I would've hit me too.

That's when it struck me (and no, it wasn't her hand; no pun intended). Maybe this little girl with beads heavy in her braids acted this way because people were always yelling at her to be quiet and sit down and just wait and listen to the directions and quit yelling at other kids. Maybe she was desperate for love and she was desperate for someone to notice her hurting heart that knew more than it should at eight years old. 

My hands moved around her soft and pouty belly and I softened my tone. "Listen, sweetheart, I know that's what you want right now, but I can't give it to you. I'm sorry. It's time for us to walk home, and yo mama is waiting for me to get you home safely. Can you trust me and walk home with me?"

She looked at me and with no change of expression, she agreed. She slipped her dark brown hand back into mine and walked across the street and the Rosamond lot for our short trek back to her house.

She asked me questions about what my full name was and how old was I and where was I from. She told me literally 30 times what her address was and pointed out her sister to me, not that she had to; they look exactly alike.

I picked her up and carried her some of the way home because her flip flops were broken and there were broken beer and liquor bottles all over the sidewalk, not to mention the ants that swarmed around any remnant of Takis, and she flung her body weight over my shoulder like I was the safest place she'd landed in a long while. 

When we finally got back to her house, she sighed and said, "Well, here my house. I don't want you to leave me though."

"I know, baby, but I'll be back tomorrow and I'll see you at bible club."

"Lemme take a picture on yo camera before you go."

She took a selfie of us on the camera I bought the night before I left for Memphis. Satisfied with her accomplishment, she turned and squeezed around my neck and then ran to her front door, pried open the iron slat door and then the creaky wooden one, and disappeared.

I can still remember looking at her house for several moments and wondering what went on behind those two doors. I wondered what may be said in between those walls, where the little girl that just ran into her house slept, where her siblings slept; if any adult was home most nights.

I can still hear G's young voice telling her sister, who we will call Cassidy for her protection, "Quit yo' whinin'. Imma tell my granddaddy on you, girl. You gon' get a whoppin' if you ain't stop ya cryin'."

"Stop, telling her that. She doesn't feel good, G. It's okay if she's crying."

"Naw, it ain't. Imma tell my granddaddy on her and she gon' get in trouble. You gon' get in trouble if you don't stop that whinin'," G reminded her sister.

I sighed. The last thing Cassidy needed was to get in trouble. I knew which house we were taking these two sisters to, and I knew it was a popular house for drug sales and prostitution. I knew how brutal it can get when an adult tells a whiny child to shut up and they don't, and my heart sped up thinking of what could happen if G told on her little sister for crying like this.

I was also frustrated with the mentality G had: you aren't allowed to be sad. That mentality is the difference in what is a child raised in the hood of Memphis, and what makes a street kid. Street kids are mean and show no other emotion that toughness--usually. (But that's a topic for another post on another day.) I wanted Cassidy to know that it's okay to be sad sometimes and cry, and it's okay to whimper because her feet hurt, and that I would gladly carry her little body as far as I could before I had to send her home. 

I argued back and forth with G for what I remember as the whole way home, telling her repetitively  that it was okay for Cassidy to be sad and that it was alright if she was carried. I couldn't understand why G cared so little for how her little sister felt. Most of the time, the older siblings are extremely protective over their younger siblings and they are more like parents to them than their real parents are. So why couldn't G care for her little sister instead of reprimanding her and dangling punishment over her head?

It's like she wants to make her cry more so that she can get her in more trouble, I thought.

Fast forward a day or two, and I found myself standing next to G and a couple of other girls. One little girl in the clump was crying for reasons I don't remember (I know, I sound super compassionate and attentive to my kids and their needs) and G started telling her again to shut up and quit being sad.

I clearly remember how I literally opened my mouth and started to tell her to stop saying that. But what Jesus spoke to me next was just as clear as all the other voices of chatter around me: She is sad too. Love her. 

I wrapped my arm around G and I just held her there. And the weirdest thing is that she didn't seem startled. She didn't fight me off or look at me like I had lost my mind. She just looked ahead and then at the ground, and so I bent in front of her.

"Baby, it's okay to be sad. And if you're sad, it's okay. You don't have to be perfect or happy for Jesus to love you. He loves you right now, just like he's loved you since before you were even born. Does that make any sense?"

Her deep brown eyes softly met my blue eyes and she nodded softly. I drew my breath. The moment was so still. It was like I was learning for the first time that if I would just choose love and choose obedience, that--all by itself--would be testament to the power of the gospel. 

The gospel is not something God needs me to share. God does not need me. But God, out of his bounty of grace, chooses me. He picks me today and tomorrow and he picked me yesterday, too. That is LOVE: picking someone even when you don't have to, and choosing to pour out grace over them anyways.

We feel that we are too inadequate and too small and too impatient for Jesus to use us. And apart from him, every single one of those things and more are true. But if we will just submit to God and decide that no matter what may come, we are his, there will be joy unspeakable. 

And whether you sink or swim, guess what? 

It doesn't even freaking matter.

Because here's what I know: God does not trophy our victories that we embark on and complete because we deem it right and good and helpful. Instead, God crowns us for attempts made in obedience because we were brave enough to believe that he is everything he's promised.

So who's about to hit you that you can choose hold the hand of anyways? And who's screaming words that are like sandpaper into your ears that you can decide to choose anyways and pour out grace over their broken hearts?

We get to do this. We get to love people. How can we, being afforded this privilege by the God who created the universe and calls us out of hiding into his marvelous light, not seize this opportunity and let love be both balm and scalpel to gaping wounds and gnarly flesh?

the longest marathon

I remember the way my body ached with fatigue and how I felt like I was underwater, holding my breath, trying to figure out which way was up. I remember sitting at lunch with my mom and my sister and trailing off mid-sentence and never finishing conversations. It felt like the hours would never end and surely this was a nightmare. Surely this couldn't be my life. God wouldn't do this to us.

I remember the way I screamed on my floor that night. I choked several times and gasped for air and almost threw up as I punched and pounded my fists into the carpet and cussed at God and wanted to know HOW he expected me to be okay with this and why he would do this to us. I remember looking around the next day at all of the faces that smiled at me and I smiled back at, and how I thought about how none of them knew how late I had stayed up gasping for every. single. breath. with half a box of used tissues piled in a drenched and snotty mess.

I still feel the sting of the words "I have cancer," and even now, writing that, it feels like it's the first time I've heard it. I know all too well the weight that sat on my chest and in every. single. one. of my bones for days, weeks after that. It felt impossible and it still feels impossible now.

I remember the nights not long after her diagnosis that I spent curled up next to her in my bed, crying on her fuzzy pajamas, and the way she whispered, "I'm sorry I have cancer," into my ear and how it felt so unjust that any mother should ever have to apologize to their child for that. If God is good, and he isn't against me, why do I feel so crammed into this box of misery?

I remember the way my breath stopped and then quickened when I saw the words DUKE CANCER CENTER across the building and how it was like having the news broken to me all over again. I remember the tears I fought just sitting in the waiting room and how every time a doctor or a nurse walked into the room it felt like my lungs were so full of everything except air, and clusters of tears threatened in the back of my eyes. My eyes burned when I saw my mom getting her vitals taken. We are here because my mom has cancer. I turned away and blinked it back.

I remember all of these things; all of these moments; all of these days, but I'm still living them. I live hard moments--lots of hard moments. And these are waves unrelenting. I am trying to learn what it means to walk with Jesus in long suffering, and to endure, instead of questioning him and fighting every waiting period and breech of the original plan. Some days this feels like a living hell and I absolutely cannot keep up with anyone or anything like I used to.

Here we are. And here he is.

He is enough and he is faithful. I'll believe that.

to be brave: a guest post by Brianna Farr

I asked Brianna to write a post for my blog because she is easily the most wide-open love kinda gal I've ever met. Our paths were crossed by a mutual friend, but she and I agree that our stories were woven intricately and similarly long before we knew each other's name. She's my soul sister, in every sense of the word. She loves Memphis, Tennessee and people, and she has heart as distinguishable as her accent and laugh. I've never seen someone dive straight into hard and ugly situations, and immerse the hurting in love and grace. She's pretty cool, and I think you'll think so too when you read what she loves to write about most--Jesus and saying yes to all that he has for us, no matter how hard or grueling, because she believes that he is worthy.

 This afternoon your girl Cameron texted me and asked if I would do her two favors. The first favor she asked of me was to write her "About" page. The second favor was for me to write a guest post for her blog. The favor is mine. I simply asked that in return she give me time to pray over the words and be sure they were from Jesus. I expected this to take a week at the least. As usual, God didn't quite agree with my timing. Within an hour "About Cameron" was written, submitted, and posted. I had no intentions of writing my guest post tonight considering it is nearing midnight, but as I lay my head down to sleep I knew I had to. He has given me the words, and I will share them with you now.

It was brave of Cameron to go to Kenya when she was a mere 13 years old. She was just as brave to go to Memphis, Tennessee at age 15. At first this doesn't seem logical. How is it that it can take as much bravery to drive nine hours in a bus on land as it does to fly 9 hours in a plane across the ocean? How is it that loving on American children with guardians can be as important as loving on African orphans? Then you realize that to follow Jesus, wherever it may be, takes bravery. A fearlessness you can only obtain in knowing Him. That no one people is more needy than another. All people have one great need and that great need is a personal relationship with Christ.

{"Human clay is not closer to porcelain in certain places, certain cultures, certain ages, than in others. What do we mean when we speak of one people as being more "needy" than another? What do we mean by "savage"? Man has one desperate need. It is God." - Elisabeth Elliot, The Savage My Kinsman.}

When Cam first agreed to come to Memphis with me I must admit that I was far from fearless. I was afraid she wouldn't see the needs at hand after seeing Kenya's slums. Oh, was I wrong. She dove in, heart first. I sat by and watched her fall in love all over again. Because it was never Kenya that changed her to begin with, and Memphis wasn't going to change her either. It was Jesus. All that time, it was Jesus.

How brave it is to love whomever He loves, wherever He leads. To look into the eyes of street kids from one side of the planet to the other and see nothing other than Jesus. To hear Swahili in one land and hear English or Spanish in another and hear nothing other than desperate pleas for the Savior's love. To smell no stink, to taste no sickness, to love like Jesus. That's brave. That's what Cameron is in Jesus. That's who we all can be, in Jesus.



I could tell you all about her divine appointment, but I won't. That's a story no one but Cameron can tell. What I will tell you is this:It doesn't take a special person, though Cam is one, to be brave. It takes a willing person. A surrendered person. And if we will just surrender, we will have ample opportunities to love like Jesus.

Stop right where you are. Yes, right here and right now. Give it up. Quit fighting Him. Whatever He is calling you to do, go do it. If you are supposed to invite your neighbor to dinner, go ring their doorbell. If you are supposed to wash the dishes for your grandmother, go run the water and add the soap. If you are supposed to move to Indonesia, get off your butt and head to the airport. If you are supposed to be a pastor, start applying. The time to be brave is here. The time to be fearless is now. Right now, in the moment in which He is calling you.

If He called Cameron to Kenya at 12, He will call you now. If He called me to Memphis at 14, He will call you now. Trust in Him. That's the best advise I can give you. None of us were made to be conformists. We were made to praise God, to follow Jesus. Don't tell me that this isn't as easy is it sounds, because trust me, I know. I also know that when you follow Jesus, you won't regret it. And if what He's calling you to doesn't seem logical, it's probably real.

scarlet threads of blood & grace

I don't have much use for sugar-coating things, so I'll be really honest with y'all. 

I don't know how to write about my life and how cancer is effecting it any more than the next gal does. If you ask me how I'm doing, I don't know how to answer you. I mean, most likely I'm doing my routine and my day is going fairly well. 

Under all of that, I also don't know at the moment what's going on in the parts of my soul, right where the always-present weight of my mom's cancer sits. I don't know if today I'll spend a lot of time obsessively worrying about her, or if I'll fall to pieces tonight in my room. I don't know if someone's harsh tone will make me tear up, or if a to-do list will make it hard for me to breathe.

I don't know if I'll only think about cancer a little bit today, and if I'll take mean words with a grain of salt. I may get a lot done in a short amount of time just because I want to, and sappy moments on TV shows could make me laugh just because they're so darn sappy.

Are you confused yet?

Welcome.

In the midst of this mental chaos and heart-churning confusion, there is one place that the noise of condolences, social media, and mundane routines is silenced: when I just look up.

When I look up and see all that he is and all that he wants for me, suddenly a diagnosis and sickness from treatments don't weigh so heavy on my whole body. I am alive because this is not all that life is; he has more for me, and most importantly, he is for me.

This Jesus, powerful and blessed, is not against me. He has every reason to hate me, this hot-tempered girl with a heart quick to writhe in bitterness, but he loves me. He is for me; never against me. In the shadows lurking around every bend in this road, the same Jesus that hung on a cross and rubbed his fingers on a blind man's eyes walks before me and behind me. His scarred hands hold mine, and when my legs are tired and my heart is worn and I fall on the path and cry until I think I can't cry anymore, he sits with me there, too.

I think these may be some of the hardest days of my life. This continual grieving, the lapping waves of sadness, the perpetual adjusting to my new normal--it makes every day hard, and some are even harder than others for no reason identifiable. 

I think these may be some of the sweetest days of my life. This resting in Jesus' lap, being invited into a throne room of glory and being asked to just sit and be with him--it makes every day a pill possible to swallow; it reminds me that this journey is impossible to walk in darkness if I am abiding in Light himself.

How sweet, and vast, and refreshing is the love of Christ, that he would walk with me in gritty suffering and mundane days. How great the grace of Jesus that he would desire to know me here, and to pull me closer still. How sustaining his promise that cancer is powerless before him, and in him, even death is LIFE.

Immanuel, we stand palms up.

She is the kind of steady that you easily trust. She is kind and she is friendly. She's patient. She is a laugher and a lover. She is stubborn and is feisty if provoked. She loves Jesus and coffee, and few things make her eyes light up like they do when her family comes home. She's the best listener I've ever known and she gives advice that points you towards Jesus. 


She's a warm, long hug after a long day and an exclamation of joy when you tell her good news. She'll scratch your back until you fall asleep and she'll cuddle up to you in a heartbeat. She beautiful in a way that few people are, and she's gentle hearted unlike anyone else I've ever seen.

She's my mama. The one that's loved me and prayed over me and worried over me. She drove me miles and miles to make me fall asleep when I was a baby, and she put band-aids on my head (in my hair) because I swore I needed one after lightly bumping my head. She made quilts for my bed and went on every field trip she could. She prayed with me before my first day of middle school and high school, and she has always encouraged me to try new things, but she has also let me fail at things. She's made sure I always knew how proud she is of me and how much she loves me, and no matter what, she points me towards Christ.

And last Tuesday, November 18th, 2014, her doctor told her that she has cancer.

I'm not writing about the details of her cancer (but you can click here to know all about that, too).

I want to write about my mama and Jesus and how beautifully the two of them collide.

Last Tuesday night, after my parents had told my siblings and I the news, everyone came over to our house. Brittany and Bo brought pizza, but no one felt like eating. We stood in the den and held each other and cried and asked why this was happening. Why her? This can't be right. This happens to other people--never your people.

We finally decided that eating would be a good thing to at least attempt, so we held hands and prayed.

My mom prayed.

Tears poured down my cheeks as she prayed for us as a family and for herself. She thanked God for being good all the time and for being an anchor and a shelter. She thanked him because even now, walking through this valley shadowed with uncertainty, pain, anger and shattering sadness, he is with us.

This past week has been hard--a hard that just tosses you around and sits in your bones and closes in on you. From Tuesday to Friday, it was almost impossible to focus on anything for more than a minute. Seriously.


I've spent several nights awake until two or three AM, sobbing and asking Jesus, Why the hell are you doing this to her? To us? To me? I can't watch her be sick. I'm scared to death of what the results are going to say. I'm scared and I don't understand. I. just. don't. understand.

I have screamed and thrown things and I have wondered if I'll ever breathe again or if I'll ever be able to focus long enough to actually do my homework. I have asked God a million and three times how we are going to do this and what his purpose in this is. I have hugged my sweet mama and let my tears run down her shoulder, and I have collapsed onto my floor in a puddle of tears, trembling in fear of all that is coming and all that we simply don't know.

And in the morning he teaches me again, though I thought I already knew: "There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning." (Ps. 30:5b)

Grace like rain.

Oh, the heart wrenching, screaming pain of the night, of the fear; of the unknown.

But the JOY that settles into my soul in the morning when I hear him whisper: Cameron, I walk with you here. I sit with you on the floors at night and catch every one of your tears. I sing over you. I rejoice over you, and oh, I rejoice over your mama. I will walk with you when she's sick from treatment, and I will be the one to mend your heart when it breaks into shards on days when she doesn't have strength or energy to do much. I am here and I too know this pain. 

So we take heart, for he has overcome. We stand, palms up, and we are his. Even when we can't breathe and sadness presses on our chests and we wonder why her, we are held and we are loved, and Jesus, he's lifted high.

I'm not sure if I offered for her to sit in my lap or if she just did because she wanted to. She was tall and skinny and her big deep brown eyes that were striking against her small, light brown face barely brushed across mine before she nudged into my lap.

And she just sat.

She didn't speak, she didn't squirm; she just sat and watched and listened Honestly, I forgot that she was sitting in my lap a couple of times because of how quiet she was when there were at least five other children around me asking me questions and hopping in and out of my lap and on and off my back. I didn't even know her name or where she'd come from. She just appeared.

And so it began.

I don't know what her name actually is. It was different everyday and no matter how many times I tried to understand her when she said it, it was indistinguishable.

She clung to my neck and secured a firm grip on my heart for the rest of the week. As soon as I had to stand up, she would get out of my lap and reach up for me to carry her. She would cling tighter and tighter to my neck, always wanting to be sure she was firmly held. I would hold her all day as tight as I could. I told her that I loved her and that Jesus loved her more than that.

I helped her with crafts and opened her lunch for her. I wiped her mouth after meals and squeezed her in my lap.

She was feisty, that one. I think that only made me love her more.

She stole my heart and Jesus stole mine. It was in those moments with my cheek against her sweet head; her arms holding tight around me; her little hand clutching mine--these are the moments that I learned grace deeper.

____

I relive these days more often than not and I still close my eyes and feel her tiny hand in mine. I smell the mustiness of the clothes she wore everyday that week and I see her eyes looking into mine.

I haven't posted since July and that's really because I haven't found time. My summer came and went in a whirlwind and all of the sudden I'm a sophomore in high school who does homework from the time I get home until I go to bed.

And I hate it.

I hate how mundane it feels and how I can't catch a break between homework and projects and tests and essays and worksheets. I haven't sat down at a family dinner in God only knows how long and there has not been ONE day since August 22 that I haven't had something to study for, an assignment to do, a story to analyze, blah blah blah. I'm so busy and my head is spinning 98% of the time with things to do, obligations, expectations to fulfill, and tasks to prioritize.

I don't know what this post is, really, but I do know what it's not: it's not something that I care to wrap up in a pretty bow and end with some cliché sentence about how I see Jesus working in me in high school. Because I don't.

That's the honest truth.

I don't know what Jesus is doing in me or my life right now, and to be quite frank, most days I don't have the time or energy to know or care.

(And now you're realizing that I probably liked that little girl and her feistiness so much because I'm feisty too.)

I'm taking it one day at a time and treading water, trying to keep my head (and my GPA) up. These days are a stark contrast from what I just shared with you about being in Memphis, I know. But I can't pretend that they're anything but a contrast.

This is a raw piece of my gnarled heart tonight. Thanks to those of you that love me anyways.

where the hurt & the Healer collide

I have spent the past week in Memphis, TN with Union Grove Baptist Church from Lenoir, NC at Street Reach Memphis falling in love with filthy children and even more in love with a beautiful Jesus. Street Reach goes into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Memphis and offers bible clubs for all of the children we can possibly get to come. I spent Monday through Friday loving on kids that were desperate for my affection, and I was more than willing to give it to them. 

I have seen abuse, neglect, brokenness and pain that threatened to squeeze every last bit of hope from my heart and gnarl me into someone that snaps shut their eyes to the hurt.

But I also saw Jesus. And in seeing him in the hurt, I refused to let myself shut my eyes. Because if I had shut my eyes to the pain and brokenness and filth of the streets and of our sin, I would have been blind to his glory.

All I have to share with you tonight is a little piece of my broken heart. I wish I was still in Memphis and didn't have to say goodbye to a little girl that wrapped her little brown arms around my neck and around my heart. I wish I didn't have to walk kids back home to their moms that don't bathe them often and their siblings that beat them to prove their dominance to their fellow gang members. My heart hurts when I think of what they see and hear everyday--gun shots, shouting, one threat of death after the other, their mother in the next room giving a man what he wants because she wants cocaine.

This brokenness is real. My brokenness is real.

And so is his love. 

In his love, I find hope and I find rest. I find joy in that the war on those streets is already won and that Jesus has conquered the hell on earth those people endure as well as the hell that we are doomed for without him.

I wrote this on Monday, June 30th:
The brokenness here breaks me. I wonder where cuts on faces came from and if anyone took immediate care to it. The eagerness in a child's face to get their lunch makes me wonder who gave them their last meal and when that was. The kids learn too early a "survival of the fittest" mentality and they are only five years old and ready to fight. Who teaches them that? 

They say things that cut to my heart and they make me laugh. My heart explodes with love and I want to put every one of them in my lap and hug all of them. Their brokenness and thirst for love that most of them have never known before breaks me, but Jesus meets me here. I see him here and I remember just how much he loves me like he loves them. That's so amazing.

Here, in the dirt and on their dirty hands that touch my face and their small bodies in my lap and hugging my sides and clenching their brown hands to my white ones, I find joy.

And I know that this is what he made me for.

I have seen him in the pained eyes of a small child and in the smile of a girl that knows that he loves her so. I have heard his voice in the cry of a young boy that is afraid of going home and in the laugh of a child that screeches with joy when I tip her upside down in my arms. I have felt his touch when my sweaty hand meets that of a young girl that wants someone to show her that they care, and I have felt him in worship when I am sure that there is no life I could imagine that is better the one he has for me. I smelled him on the trash lined streets because he is reclaiming them and I smelled him in the tight hug of a child that hasn't been bathed in weeks.

So I force my eyes wide open and ask that he would let my eyes see brokenness in a raw way. I refuse to shut my eyes to the hurt expression of a young boy of the hopelessness in the eyes of a little girl. I refuse to shut my eyes to the condom wrappers and broken bottles that line the roads that tell the heart-shattering tale of the fast pleasures these people seek and their lostness and oblivion to what truly gives joy.

I refuse to shut my eyes because I am determined to see him here. I refuse to shift my gaze from Jesus' eyes just because seeing what he sees is uncomfortable and dirty.

I hold his stare and look at the snot and the dirt and the sin because he is hope in this place. He is love. He is joy. He is redemption.

Behold his glory and just open your eyes.

He is not done and he wants YOU to see him and to be a part of what he is doing.

Wake up, sleepers. Redemption is here.

"Come, let us return to The Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge The Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

Hosea 6:1-3