First

So I am eternally jealous of people who make connections with other people. I watch other people care about each other and I wonder why that's never me. One of my friends was talking about her insecurities and she said, "I wonder why I'm never the first in anyone's life." It was so perfectly me that I had to say it again.

I hate being made a liar even more than I hate being a liar. I went over to camp on Monday and helped out with the swim test (and swam more than I have in a year, darn you, UNC pools) and ran away to work. I went to camp on Tuesday and helped out at the pool and ran away to class. Just as I was leaving, one of my campers from two years ago came over and said, "Where are you going? I only came over here because you were here." I laughed it off and said, "Well, I'll be here tomorrow, so you can come over here tomorrow."

I wasn't there tomorrow.

My older brother came back from China on Thursday. He made it back to North Carolina on Friday. I spent Wednesday cleaning out his room in the basement, discovering a new telescope (yes!), and inhaling loads and loads of dust. And making friends with spiders. I'm going soft in my old age- I almost felt bad tearing down their homes and shooing them out of the basement. So I didn't go to camp on Wednesday. I didn't go to camp on Thursday. I'm trying to decide what I actually did this week. I worked. I threw ice cream. I made tips. I deck brushed that entire backroom floor and my shoulder still hurts. I wallowed in self-pity, I think.

I went to camp on Friday. Friday mornings are the opposite of Sunday mornings, in my book. They're the last chance I have to see these wonderful people who have come into my life and the day that I have to decide whether they get to come into mine. Other counselors would give away their phone numbers and their addresses. It took me four years to give away my address and my phone number, and even then, it was to the kids who I trusted enough, the ones I wanted to know outside of the five days a year I saw them. So I guess the reason I'm not first in anyone's life is because no one's first in mine.

I really came on Friday morning to see this one camper again. It's her last year and she wants to go to UNC and she smiled and hugged me when I showed up at lunch on Monday and she was one of the hardest campers I ever had to deal with, which makes her one of the best. She left and I hugged her goodbye and that was that. And then she friended me on Facebook and that makes me smile immensely.

But I was watching a group of kids after everyone else had gotten picked up and while the staff was having their meeting. I really wanted to sit in on the meeting, to tell the counselors that morning devotions really do help, because you're putting something in at the beginning of the day. I mean, I love to sleep and even I would recommend that half an hour. And I recommend sleeping and praying and talking with your campers, getting to know them, loving them, caring for them, working with them because that's what you're here for. I wanted to share four summers' worth of rather hard-won wisdom. I watched kids instead, so I guess I was really meant to learn instead of teach on Friday.

Israel has been coming to camp for four summers. I remember him. He can do awesome flips on the trampoline, I found out, but he alternates between wanting you to love him and shutting off. For instance, I did a flip on the trampoline (OK, it's half a flip, I land on my butt, but it's the best I can do) and while the girls were trying to reenact the weird sideways twist I did (darn bulging disk), Israel said, over and over again, "No, that was tight. That was awesome." Here's this kid who gets big and tries to push everyone around the second anyone even thinks of making less of him, and he's complimenting my pathetic little flip. These are the best kids, you know that? They are wonderful, I don't care what you say. They will never be high risk as long as there's someone there to love them like they deserve to be loved. But you will label them and you will talk about them in the staff room and you will pass them on the street and shake your head. Are they first in anyone's life? Because that top place is sitting there open in theirs. Someone has to love them.

One of my campers called me today. My freshman year of high school (I swear, five and half years is penance enough) two guys called me, within half an hour of each other, to ask me out. The first one said that he loved me and I think I laughed. Hopefully internally. You don't love someone when you're a freshman in high school. I've since convinced myself that you don't love someone when you're a freshman in college either. I told him that I must be first in a long list of girls and I said something else. First in a list. So that ended that one. The next one called me and i said that I couldn't go out with him because I was in love with someone else. And you know, I think I was, but that is a long long story, but that ended that call. And ever since, I always tend to wonder where I am on someone's list when they're calling to ask for something.

I didn't wonder when Hannah called because it doesn't matter. I'm in her life, no matter how failingly,and all I want to do is help. She told me to pray because her cousin, she's been praying, and she feels like He's not listening. I mean, what do you tell someone who says that God's not listening? "Oh, what a coincidence, He's not listening to me either"? "Oh, you just need to pray harder"? I will never say that. "You just gotta have faith." I wish they didn't sound so empty. It was weird, the second I hung up, I prayed. And I had no clue what to pray for and I had no clue if it's going to work or what it's going to do, but these words came to me and I said them to the great powers in the sky. And why on earth would God listen to me? There are so many more qualified, more faithful people for Him to listen to, better people who are honest and true and less stubborn and obedient and unquestioning. There are people who don't have reasons to list for why God shouldn't listen to them. Why should He listen to me?

Because He loves me. And you. Everyone. And in some cases, it's this love that would be pathetic coming from anyone else, because it's never going to be returned. They don't even know He exists. Some people get confused, some don't care, some don't need it, some don't want it, some have somebody else. Some love Him, some don't and that's your business. Mine is to be amazed. Amazed, because, no matter what happens, He listens. You and I and six billion other people break His heart daily and He listens and He loves and He never lets go. That doesn't have to change your world and I'll never understand why it doesn't change His, but it stops mine from spinning.

Great thing is, He doesn't want to be first. He only wants to be everything.