Overcoming Fear

Cast Your Cares: How the Camel Reveals Our Hearts

Me Ra Koh

Cast Your Cares – Overcoming Fear – Dallas Speaker & Author

After the many responses and comments from Surviving as an Entrepreneur, I was reminded of how many of us are facing fears and stresses that often leave us feeling isolated. The encouragement to cast your cares is something we know in our head but struggle with in our heart.  As you can read from the previous post, I was hitting my own bottom and that is always a scary feeling.

In 2014, we spent a month filming and photographing Egypt.  There were many amazing moments in Egypt, full of rich lessons that I will be processing for years to come.  But one lesson that struck me at the heart was how much I can identify with the nature of a camel…and how dangerous this can be.

Camels are peaceful, as long as they are walking.  The moment a camel is asked to stop or sit down, he will put up the biggest, crankiest, most stubborn fight.

The camel would rather keep walking with the heavy burden on his back than go through the effort of stopping. 

In the middle of all this hands-on experience, one of my dear friends–Amie Dockery, an amazing teacher and pastor in Texas, emailed me.

“Me Ra, I keep picturing the etymology of the Bible verse, “Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you.” The root word translation of the word “cast” in this verse is taken from the meaning of a camel who gets down on its knees and then rolls over to one side, rolling the burdens (baggage) from its back … Perhaps because you are in Egypt near camels or maybe because I sense you are burdened.”

I cried when I read her email.

All of us are carrying burdens. 

In some sense, many of these burdens are the crosses we bear whether its financial stress, health, sickness, loss, strained relationships with loved ones, the list goes on and on.  We want to cast our cares, have faith and firmly believe that every thing will work out — all our fears will be okay.  But the casting is much harder than we’d like to admit.

After reading her email, I identified with the camel because the truth is that I would rather keep plowing through my own deserts, with my burdens heavy on my back, a weight I’ve grown accustomed to carrying — than risk resting.  When you are plowing through the desert, at least you feel like you are going somewhere.

Right?  And then I read Paulo Coelho’s words in The Alchemist:

“Tomorrow, sell your camels and buy a horse.  Camels are traitorous: they walk thousands of paces and never seem to tire. Then suddenly, they kneel and die.  But horses tire bit by bit.  You always know how much you can ask of them, and when it is that they are about to die.”

Cast Your Cares by Me Ra Koh, Speaker, Author and Photographer

These words wake up my foolish thinking — the traitorous pride inside me.  I can’t plow through any desert without rest, no matter how much I convince myself and the world around me that I’m not tired.

One of my long time business mentors, once said to me “Me Ra, you need to always remind yourself that you are the boss.  You decided to run your own business because you wanted to be the boss. 

But like most small business owners, the business starts to dictate your time

and you feel like you are working for the business — a slave to it versus the business working for you.  When this happens, you need to find the most high pressured moment of your week, and go see a movie — go rest — in the middle of the day.  Tell only Brian and escape, and by doing so you show yourself that the world will not come to an end if if you rest.  That you can walk away for two, three hours, and everyone will still be waiting when you come back.  The demands will still be there, but you will have been refreshed.”

Cast your cares…

When I went to a movie in the middle of the day by myself, I almost had a panic attack.  I truly thought that if I took those two hours off everything we’d built would POOF.  I believed it was impossible to walk away during the most high stress hours of my day. It took half the movie before I stopped breathing into a paper brown bag.  The “one” other person in the theater must have thought I was nuts.  (there wasn’t really a paper brown bag, but you get it.)

There are some seasons in life when I feel like I’m living the truths…

of having faith, believing, trusting and resting with ease.  And then there are other seasons. Seasons when I must remind myself multiple times a day that this burden is to heavy to carry without rest. Cast your cares my heart whispers.

What is most striking is that only when I risk casting my cares do I experience being cared for.

still we rise,

m

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  1. You have to be my favorite person 😉 You inspire me in all things photography and you have lifted my spirit numerous times! Thank you for letting God use you and for being such a wonderfully talented photographer! I am so grateful for the knowledge I glean from your blogs!!

  2. Thanks so much Kaila Burkett! You are so sweet. We need each other as we aspire to be all that we were created to be. much love!!!