Episode Thirteen: The Byte - Pastor Campos-MacDonald
In this byte-sized episode, Cazandra relates how a visit from her mother-in-law, after she had died, cemented her belief that even death cannot separate us, especially when love is involved. Also, in this episode, find out what welcoming the stranger means to this Pastor from the desert Southwest.
Transcript
I think what really gets me is these crazy Christians,
These crazy Christians who are so judgmental and so literal and so painfully conservative that they can't see the gray.
It's all black and white.
And it puts people like me in a bad light.
They make us all look nuts.
You know,
It's like,
I just,
I don't believe in the judgmental stuff.
That's not my job.
I have two sons.
Okay,
One is 24 and one is 14.
So it's like I had kids in two different time periods.
Big difference.
And both of them have a rare genetic bleeding disorder called hemophilia.
And the short story is,
It's carried by the mom.
It was me.
I didn't know.
It was a bit,
Again,
There was a secret in my family.
My older brother,
Who would have been five years older than me,
Died from a head bleed from complications at birth.
He died at five days of age.
But the secret was that he died from jaundice,
But my parents would never talk about it.
And I always realized it was probably just too painful.
But all these years later when my second child was born,
And I'm like,
He has hemophilia,
Are you freaking kidding me?
That means I carry it.
That means,
And we put things together after my parents had both passed away,
That it was in the family.
Okay.
And so that is a whole other shift in my life.
You know,
When I had,
Gave birth to a child who had a chronic illness,
And it's like,
Okay,
What does that mean?
You know,
And talk about having to rely on my faith.
And even when I just couldn't even see in front of me.
But one of the things that I remember,
Because my oldest son with his hemophilia,
I call him the easy one.
He didn't have nearly the problems as my youngest.
My youngest had just nightmare problems.
I could go on for days about the stuff he experienced.
But,
You know,
He's doing really well now.
He suffers from chronic pain,
But,
You know,
Looking at him,
He's 5'9",
This is a moose,
He's taller than me.
He's doing really good.
And it's like,
If you would have seen him in second grade,
First grade,
Second grade,
You wouldn't have believed it.
Because he was in a wheelchair for a whole year.
He couldn't walk.
He was as white as a sheet.
I mean,
Lots of complications.
So,
You know,
It was bad.
But during that year,
My mother-in-law suddenly passed away.
It was absolutely devastating because it was just terrible.
And we were living in a small town,
Truth or Consequences,
New Mexico.
We lived there for a while,
For three years,
And my husband was pastoring there.
And my husband at the time,
He was going back and forth to Ileth.
Once a week,
He would fly.
And so anyway,
He was back and forth.
I was home with the kids a lot.
Caleb Stark,
My youngest,
Had this horrible bleed,
And we were in the hospital,
And we got the call that Joe's mom died.
And Caleb couldn't travel.
So I said,
Joe,
You need to go.
We will follow you.
You know,
The three of us will come.
We got to get the okay.
And I mean,
Several days,
Several days,
Every day,
The doctors are like,
Cassandra,
I just don't know.
It's just you can't go.
And I was just devastated.
And so finally,
My oldest son,
We put him on a plane to meet my husband in Houston.
And I was so upset that I couldn't be there,
But I had to stay with Caleb because he just couldn't travel.
The next morning,
The morning of the funeral,
Okay,
The morning of the funeral,
I woke up.
I was sitting in the chair.
I woke up.
It was like five o'clock.
It was really early.
And for some reason,
I just woke up,
And I looked at the bed,
And Caleb,
He was fast asleep,
And he raised his arms in the air.
Granny,
Granny.
And he was grasping for the air,
Like trying to grab her.
And I'm getting chills just thinking about it.
And I looked at that,
And he put his arms down and went back to sleep.
And it was that moment that I'm like,
I felt like the Holy Spirit came into our life and said,
Ruby came to say goodbye and that you're doing the right thing and that she's okay.
And when I saw that,
I'm like,
You know,
All this stuff we had been through with Caleb that was been so hard,
And here was this little reminder that God said,
You know what,
Yeah,
Ruby's gone.
She was our champion of my boys,
And it was just so unexpected.
But it was that moment,
I'll never forget,
That it's like that whole room just filled with that presence.
And,
Whew,
Yeah,
Even now,
It just makes me tear up,
And this was years ago.
But,
You know,
That's one of those moments that you get,
If you're lucky,
You get one of those moments or maybe a couple when you know that,
Okay,
I'm doing the right things,
And God is saying you're okay,
It's going to be okay.
Talk about cemented,
Especially dealing with a sick kid.
I don't know that there's anything worse except losing a child,
You know,
Having a child that is sick.
And it just takes over your world,
Which it should.
You know,
That's all you can think of.
It's all you can see.
But it even gets to the point where sometimes your faith,
You're like,
Do I even have any,
You know,
Do I?
Because you're so focused on the next thing for your child to happen.
And I remember that during the times when Caleb would be in the hospital down there at University of New Mexico,
Even on Sundays,
Because,
You know,
My husband was sort of busy on Sundays as a pastor,
I would try to sneak out and go to service like at one of the Methodist churches close by.
And sometimes it was not just,
It wasn't about hearing a message,
It was just sort of about being somewhere,
You know,
Where you knew other people believe the way you do.
It was in those moments that when I felt like I was letting God down,
Because we do that all the time,
Right,
Every day,
You know,
In those moments where I felt like,
Okay,
I know I haven't been here,
God,
But I'm trying,
You know,
I'm connecting,
I'm here.
Through all of those moments,
Every time we would,
You know,
Turn a corner and something good would happen,
You know,
Or something bad,
I knew that that was there.
You know,
My faith never left me,
Even though I wasn't maybe very outwardly showing it or,
You know,
Saying something about,
You know,
Faith or whatever.
The older I have gotten,
The more that my belief is core to who I am.
And the move to New Mexico those years ago wasn't only for,
You know,
My husband and his calling,
Because it helped me uncover mine that I had all those years ago when I was wearing my little black and white check dress in Catholic school to where I'm now pastoring a church.
And it's just funny,
Because sometimes I think back and look at where I was or where if I hadn't listened,
If Joe and I hadn't listened to that invitation to move,
Where would I be?
But,
You know,
I think the older I've gotten,
All the experiences I've been through,
I have no doubt that there is a God.
It hurts me when I hear someone say,
I just don't believe in anything,
You know,
Because I think there's something.
One of the things that I've contemplated is that,
You know,
As human beings,
Each of us is so very different and so singular.
And so God or the energy or the universe,
However you define that presence,
Knows that one size doesn't fit all,
But also yearns for connectedness and relationship.
And so,
You know,
We'll use Buddhism.
As long as you approach with or want to connect with authenticity and truth and with the goal for true communion,
It doesn't matter what faith you.
You can be pagan.
You can be Methodist.
You can be Lutheran.
As long as the end result is a conversation between that energy and ourselves,
Then Joker's wild.
I just want to share this last thing with you is that one time this couple took us to lunch,
And they were basically,
I've never been one to like not eat or stop like with a lot of food left on my plate,
But I literally could not eat after this happened.
So we're at lunch,
And basically this man was saying,
But Joe,
Right here in the Bible,
It says John 3 16 for God so left all that and said,
This is the only way.
And if you are not a Christian and don't believe this,
You're going to hell.
Right.
And I was just kind of like,
I've heard of these conversations.
I can't believe this is happening in front of me.
And that's when I put my fork down.
And so so I think what really gets me is these crazy Christians,
These crazy Christians who are so judgmental and so literal and so painfully conservative that they can't see the gray.
It's all black and white.
And it puts people like me in a bad light.
They make us all look nuts.
And,
You know,
It's like I just I don't believe in the judgmental stuff.
That's not my job.
Our job on this in this world is not to judge others.
And we do it.
We're human.
OK,
We look at people at Wal-Mart and go,
Are you kidding?
But still,
We are not here to judge and say,
Well,
You're going to hell because you don't believe like me.
And that right there is a big problem.
You know,
My job,
My my my role as a woman of faith,
As a pastor,
As a mother,
As an advocate in the health care field is to love other people.
And if I can do something to help someone feel loved,
Then I think that is what I'm fulfilling my mission.
So if you're Buddhist,
I'm going to love you.
If you're a Wiccan,
I'm going to love you.
OK,
It doesn't matter.
I really appreciate using the imagery of the black and white,
You know,
As far as just how some people see the world or see,
You know,
Well,
Anything.
But because I've always thought that God's grace,
The universe's grace is in the gray area.
Amen,
Sista.
It's not black and white.
You'll find it in the gray area where things are like uncertain and still not formed yet.
That's right.
This has been episode 13 of Bite Sized Blessings,
A podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us.
If only we open our eyes to it and whether you choose to listen to our bite sized offerings for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day or the longer interviews.
We're grateful you're here.
I need to thank Cassandra Campos McDonald for sharing her story today,
As well as the creators of the music used.
Alexander Nakarada,
Closs,
Appel,
Sasha End,
Philip Rice,
Frank Schroeter and Agnies Falmagia.
For complete attribution,
Please see the Bite Sized Blessings Web site.
And remember,
That's bite spelled B Y T E on the Web site.
You'll find links to other books,
Music and change makers.
I think will lift and inspire you.
Thank you for listening.
And here's my one request.
Be like Cassandra and keep your mind and heart eternally open and full of love.
Oh.
Oh,
Oh,
Oh,
Oh,
