CAM

Here on earth, this morning, there were no trumpets, no press reports, no television stories about my friend CAM (it was always all caps).  He passed quietly in the morning hours, after five years of suffering, rounds of chemo, days (day after day) of uncertainty.

And yet, til the end, he was the most positive person I've ever met.  Almost unfailingly positive, even in life scenes that had little promise -- burned out fireplace, empty hearth, lights flickering only barely.

He loved Jesus with more passion than anyone.  No, you can't measure that, of course, and so there's a touch of hyperbole in that statement.  But he expressed it openly and shamelessly to anyone and everyone.  In ways I cannot.  In ways he could.  And the way he did it was so openly transparent that even the harshest of critics and skeptics would still love the person -- CAM.

He thought about others, it seemed, all the time.  I don't know how he had the time to be a great father, a great husband, and a great friend to everyone he knew.  I don't know how he could remember the slightest little interest you had and bring you something six months or a year later that fit that interest to a "T".  He came to see me at my 50th birthday party.  And yet, during all of this, he was fighting cancer -- month after month, year after year, over and over again.  I just don't know how he did it, how he was who he was.

Today, our thoughts and prayers turn from CAM to Becky and the kids and to their extended families.

Earlier this week, a friend from Atlanta (David Clapp) stopped in DC.  I told him about the night sky over New Zealand; and he said, you have got to see Louie Giglio's video "Indescribable."  Before I knew that CAM had passed away this morning, I woke, rolled over, tried to go back to sleep, finally gave up, and dialed up Louie's video on YouTube around 7:30 am.  in the video, Giglio emphasizes (with photographs from Hubble and commentary from a South African astronomer) over and over how great God is -- how magnificent and incomprehensibly powerful -- so far beyond anything we can comprehend -- and how much he cares for us.  He showed a lot of photos, including the Pleiades, and he reminded me that God asked Job, "can you bind the Pleiades together or loosen the ties that hold Orion?"  Can you measure the universe in the span of your hand?

I lay in bed, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but always in awe of God -- before I knew that CAM had passed this morning.  The video finished, and then Bobby's message came by email:  CAM went home to be with Jesus at 6:45 this morning.

I don't understand CAM's suffering or his passing.  I don't know why God did not heal him in this life and leave him here to love Becky and, as Becky described it in her text about his passing, their "babes" (ages 6, 8 and 11).  But I cannot hold the Pleiades or Orion in my hand, and so I must trust the One who made it and who can.

Today, I will buy a 5x7 frame to hold and memorialize the photo of Bobby, Jonathan, Cam and me from Creighton Farms.

Dear Lord, even in times we don't understand, we trust you.  Where else can we go?  You have the words of eternal life.