JENNIFER J. CAMP

I’m sitting next to the five of them. And it is fine.

I am fine.

My friend is teaching us a card game popular in the Midwest. She grew up playing it before moving to California in her twenties.

“There wasn’t much to do in the winters in Indiana when it was freezing and you didn’t feel like going outside. So, for me and my friends, we spent lots of hours over the years playing cards.”

The six of us, three couples, were heading back from a trip we had just been on together, an adventure that included a visit to the new house one of the couples, our dearest friends, are going to be moving to next year, many states away from us, as well as taking hikes in an unfamiliar city and sitting in crowded cafes listening to jazz. It had been a great time together already, and now, on our last day, we crowded together in a tiny space where we wanted our friend from Indiana to teach us the game she grew up playing. It was sure to be a perfect way to pass the time.

a oil painting of a person in the forest

I am overwhelmed.

I watch their movement — my friends’ hands. There are six of us here at the table, but just four of us are playing. Justin and I missed the first lesson, the basic “and this is how you play,” lesson, and I wasn’t picking up how to play just by watching.

While he watches, Justin asks lots of questions: “Why did you do that? How does that work?” My other two friends, who are also learning, bravely ask questions, too.

“Here are my cards. Should I play or pass?”

“Oh, that’s a good hand.” There’s potential there. You might want to play.”

I am silent, clinging to my glass.

Pay attention. You’ll get it.

I ask a couple of questions mid-game, but I am lost.

How does this game work? I don’t understand what is going on.

I try my best not to space out, not let my mind wander to something less stressful.

Stay focused. You can do this. You can figure this out.

But then self-contempt’s sorrow floods my heart, familiar and dark, and I surrender to it willingly, weary of the battle, relishing the voice’s contempt, its insidious disappointment and self-loathing:

You don’t have what it takes. You never have. You have never been smart enough to do things like this. Stand down.

I can’t hear my friends anymore — or even see them. I am here and not here.

Midway through the second game, I stand from my seat and retreat, moving to a chair nearby.

Being alone is what you deserve. After all, you lack intelligence and quickness. You belong here, away from everyone else. It was a joke to think you could figure out the game.

Justin comes over to sit across from me, which I appreciate. His presence is kind. He can’t hear the voice I hear, but I can tell he can sense it.

He sits with me without speaking. He knows that, right now, logic will not work — not against my resolve. And when he returns to the group, I lean into the voice's bitter words again.

You are missing so many things. You are so different from them.

I agree.

Yes, yes, that is true.

I relish this cruelness.

The laughter fills the small space, my friends telling jokes and stories, and I sit alone, my head bent over my phone so it looks like I’m reading. But I do not belong here, and I must plan my escape.

I must quit every group I am in. I must quit pretending.

I think about my job — my trying to lead and encourage people as they want to engage more deeply with God — and decide that is a stupid idea. I am angry, so angry at God for making me this way.

You are not smart enough to do this job or anything helpful. And you know he made you like this on purpose. He thinks you are not missing anything. But you know that’s not true, don’t you? The evidence is clear, isn’t it? You don’t belong. You amount to nothing.

I let the voice cover and smother me so I can feel and think nothing. I struggle to speak when the game ends and my friends gather near where I am.

How can I pretend? I have left them, and I don’t plan to return.

Together, we eat lunch that I cannot taste, and I make little effort to engage in conversation. It is strange how I don’t care that I am being unfriendly: I am no longer myself. These are my dearest friends, and I am far, far away.

Then, with kind discretion, Justin hands me his phone with a note that is so true: “You are being a little rude.” And within the note, I recognize an unwritten invitation: Option One: Continue to listen to the vindictive voice full of derision and contempt. Or Option Two: Turn my heart towards love.

I choose Option Two.

Jesus, I am hurting. I am afraid. I am sad. Please help.

I don’t know how to have small talk with these friends, so I jump in and speak the only words I can bear to speak to them, sharing my contrition for my behavior and how my struggle to learn the game triggered something in me that is not yet healed: I still struggle with insecurity about my value, my talents and my worth, and I succumbed to that insecurity today, during an innocuous card game between friends.

As I speak, my friends’ kind eyes meeting mine, the echoes of that dark and sinister voice drift away. I confess my heart and the truth I speak ushers in hope and light.

You are loved. I am here. Listen, listen, listen to me.

A few days later, I heard God’s voice in my heart: a single word to explore:

Mercy.

I run to him for an explanation, hungry for conversation. I must understand what he means.

Lord, You whisper to me about mercy. Will you talk to me about it? This gift, this character of you, is something I have taken for granted. But oh, how you are merciful. You are mercy. And I want to be merciful — towards myself and other people. Will you tell me what I don't know so I can understand?

“Shame is always rooted in the places of sin still uncovered.”

In my heart, I hear him speak:

“Mercy begins with love. It is the foundation. Without love, there can be no mercy. Without love, you cannot just wish for mercy and obtain it. It happens within you through my love. When my love is rejected and unreceived by you, you have no mercy to give. And some areas of your life, parts of you, have felt my mercy because you have allowed my love to penetrate you. And then there are areas of your heart that have rejected mercy and my love.

“Shame is a loud silencer of mercy, a wall you put up or hide behind because there are places you think my love should not reach. You have decided, as the judge of yourself, the administer of shame, that parts of your heart do not deserve — are not worthy — of love, and so you welcome shame instead of mercy. And shame is a dark place, an isolated place, a lonely place for you to be.”

What shall I do to identify where I welcome shame? In what parts of my heart does it exist?

“Shame is always rooted in the places of sin still uncovered, held up to the light. I forgive your sin. I forgive you. I love you. I have mercy on you. I do not want you to suffer in your shame. Sin is death. It is an icy blade that wounds you, and you welcome it, rather than my mercy, in areas where you think you know better than me. You think you deserve pain; you deserve suffering. You feel contempt for yourself in the parts of your heart you keep from me. I want all of you — and I don’t say this because I am greedy — it is because it hurts you (and what hurts you hurts me) not to have all of you given to me. You suffer when you withhold yourself and do not give me all of yourself. For you are in a war for your heart, and I have come to set you free.”

Set me free, Lord. What do I do to be set free?

“Turn shame on its head — recognize it for what it is: death. And then let me show you how you have adopted it as a family member rather than rejecting it and giving it to me.”

I reject it. I hate it. I am sad that I have left shame to rule me — have so much control over me.

“Let shame have no footing.”

I turn to you and feel so loved when I am with you. You do not see my sin.

“No, I do not.”

You see me.

“Yes, yes, I do.”

And you love what you see.

“Yes, yes, I do.”

Shame cannot live here. I don’t want it to have such control over me. Could you take it? Free me from it. Show me where it has lived — what moments have invited my heart to house it rather than turn and be loved by you.

“I will show you. Let me give you a picture.”

And I close my eyes. I want to see.

Lay Me Down

Dreams full of speculation
about the reason a man, alone
in a room, leans over the
bed of a sleeping girl and
licks her face as if he were
a dog and she a piece of meat
or why a man, palms nervous,
sweat dripping down his face, becomes
trapped in an elevator, or so he thinks
when it pauses
between two floors for five
seconds before opening its door
at floor eight to let him out,
and then a teacher, young and insecure,
fails to locate her classroom
of pupils, until she does, and
they all laugh at her, derision filling
the room as it spins and swells
and pushes her out
—we do not belong/here
where hearts cannot be trusted
and our confusion leads to
shame. I take each of these thoughts
—the men, the girl, the teacher,
the students, and I let my
heart feel its panic, its
revulsion at a world of strangeness
too much and not enough
and we, its children, tear about
like wild orphans needing
companionship, discipline, and love
and a place to weep and lay our heads.