Lost and Found

The air is dry. It is dark; hazy orange and greyish-black melt all around me. I rolled over on my left side and pulled the double layer of quilts tighter under my chin. The zigzag shape glowed from behind the glass of the gas stove. As it came into focus, it arrested my gaze. The bright chevron pattern seemed trapped in its confining rows inside the big metal box. It was almost within my reach, directly beside the pullout couch. I breathed in its warmth.

My toes are warm. Granny had brought us an extra heavy quilt. The silhouette of her face leaned closer to my sister and I as she put the second one on top of us; I was glad she had brought it.

The stove is on. I’m glad it’s on. Sometimes it clicks off for a while, but it always clicks back on.

I won’t get cold.

Is everyone asleep now but me?

I flip on my back again and then breathe in. I swish my legs like scissors between the sheets as warmth flashes across the tops of my toes and beneath my calves. Don’t be too loud. You’ll wake them up. I flip on my side, breathing. It’s still glowing. My toes are warm.

Rest, little girl.

Gravel spun out from under my tires as I made the quick left turn onto another gravel road. “In 2.3 miles, turn left, then turn right.” I couldn’t. I could not stay lost one more second or I might really lose it. I’d been to the state park I was heading to once before and there was DEFINITELY not a gravel road through a cemetery on the way. My phone was dying. I had searched for a good ten minutes to find an outlet in my Granny’s basement the night before with no luck. There wasn’t one behind the gas stove, or on any wall that I could see that wasn’t covered with heavy furniture. Imagine that. As children we never once needed outlets to plug in devices, so I had no idea were they might be. I slept without charging my phone and now I was lost somewhere outside of Milburn, KY, my apparently useless gps powers draining my battery that couldn’t charge fast enough. When my phone finally flashed the message “Temperature: Iphone needs to cool down before you use it.” I pulled over without thinking halfway into the grass, halfway in the gravel. I got out of the car that seemed to be closing in on me.

Breathe, little girl. 

The God of the universe had sat me down underneath a tree, in a cemetery, of all places. I was not there by choice. I was lost and found at the same time. I put my hands in the soft grass and was reassured by the feel of solid earth beneath it. Sunshine wrapped around the tree from behind me and fractured onto the cut stone in front of me.

I’m so sorry, Daddy.

My face was wet. The beauty of the cemetery drew me further into an intimacy with my Father that I had been avoiding. How does one describe the co-mingling of anguish and forgiveness, the volley back and fourth between releasing one fearful thought to a proclamation of praise the next? The warmth of the presence of Jesus had settled me and by now my eyes were clear. The gravestone in front of me came into focus.

SALLIE

WIFE OF JOHN

CAVENDER

1866-1919

AT REST

Sallie. What had her life been like? Had she had children? Why was she not next to her husband? I tried to imagine what the daily life of a wife at the turn of the century might have been like with little imagination. My thoughts turned to my Granny and how she had loved us. How many times have I been challenged to think about the eventual words on my gravestone in books and sermons? What will my legacy be? What will they say about me?  Let me tell you, I’ve carped some diems and I still don’t feel like I’ve done anything worth mentioning. The stone blares the question: What if today were it? What if your next breath were your last? It was a question that I have been trained to answer with puffed up plans, but also one that pushes me toward guilt. Our culture says Live. Dream. Go. Be. Play. Love! Life is an emergency and we have to catch up!

If today were my last, if in my next breath I were raised to heaven, I can say to God that he has given me enough. I am not satisfied with my life or what I’ve done, I am satisfied the promise of seeing the face of Jesus. Having you means I do not need another person, (though I'll take one!) a perfect home, or an envious accomplishment with my name attached to it. My primary purpose on this earth has been to know you and I know you.

 Even my satisfaction makes me want more and you will give it forever.  That is what finally gives rest to my soul. 

More Thoughts On My Burkina Faso Trip And Giving Instructions

Many of you are already aware of my upcoming trip to Burkina Faso! I am so thrilled about this chance that has come my way. As much as singleness is a struggle for me sometimes, today I'm feeling so blessed to have the ability to pick up and go pretty much anywhere, anytime as God leads.  I truly believe my ability to go right now is God-given because of how the circumstances have lined up and becuase of my freedom to do so.  Raise your hand if you never thought you would hear me refer to singleness that way. ;) Also, I am very excited to be a part of training young, local believers to reach the people of Africa for Christ with fewer cultural barriers. 

If you would like to read about the work of Jay and Kathy Shafto, who I will be working alongside; here is their blog.

http://shaftonews.blogspot.com/ 

If you feel led to give in order to help offset the cost of my trip, you can Give Online via our church's website here: https://www.acionlinegiving.com/Default.aspx?cid=1395

Please indicate BURKINA FASO in the special intentions section of the giving page. Gifts will be tax deductible. Please do not feel pressured to give, I am confident the Lord will provide just enough right on time. 

I hope everyone is well. I would love to hear from each of you and appreciate your prayers, which I know have seen me through countless seasons.

Love, 

Steph

Update! 2-9-14

Hi Friends and Family!

On the way to the “K Lot” parking lot from the Blanding Tower dorm at the University of Kentucky, there were (still are?) two rows of tennis courts. On a particular day in the fall of 2000, on the long walk to my car, in between the tennis courts, I found myself praying about whether I should go on a mission trip to Burkina Faso, West Africa. The Baptist Student Union was organizing a team, and as I prayed I felt it was something I should do. My mother would probably tell you that was a not strange prayer for me to pray. As a young girl I poured over magazines filled with photos and articles about other countries; so in that regard it wasn’t strange.  However, my current season of life had been characterized by me being somewhat (giving myself a little grace) totally consumed with myself and the problems that come with being human. I don’t believe I am being too dramatic in saying my prayer walk from the dorm to the parking lot was ordained by God because I was gasping for spiritual air. I was suffocating thinking only about myself and what direction my life would take. (Now that I’ve been to Burkina Faso twice, I always only think about other people all the time. Wink, wink.)

We arrived in Burkina Faso the next summer and were instructed to spend time prayer walking though millet and peanut fields, stopping at one cluster of mud huts and on to the next, asking how we could pray for the beautiful, humble, Bissa people. We taught Bible stories to children and played red rover. We slept in a concrete school with donkeys outside our windows. It's probably pretty romanticized in my mind by now, but I firmly believe Burkina Faso was part of God’s plan to open my eyes to the vastness of his love for the world and his purpose for me in Kingdom work. It was truly life changing. When I left, I knew I wanted to go back some day to return, in some small way, the priceless gift that was given to me by the missionaries and the people there.

I am so excited to let you know that my hope will be fulfilled very soon! I have been given the opportunity to go back to Burkina Faso in just FOUR short weeks! During the second week of March I will be traveling to work alongside the missionaries there to help train local leaders who work with children using a program called “Route 412” based on 1 Timothy 4:12. Would you please pray for the missionaries, lay leaders and myself as we focus together on ways to effectively encourage children to be examples of discipleship?

I am so thankful for each person reading this. I wish I could sit down one-on-one with you and talk about how excited I am! Please feel free to ask me how you can pray more specifically. If you are able to support me financially, I would be thrilled! The cost of my trip will be approximately $2,000.00. I am so humbled to let you know that God is already providing to make this a reality! Thank you again for who you are and what you meant to me over the years! It’s been fun thinking back and remembering all the wonderful people who have impacted me before and since college. Please let me know how I can pray for you!

Love,

Stephanie  

In A Pew Next To My Mother

In a pew next to my mother.

In the floor of my bedroom in the house where I grew up. The carpet was chocolate brown.

On that navy blue, and off-white-dotted couch in that same little house. It had extra-cushiony arms.

On the 16^th Floor of Blanding Tower at UK, again, on the floor.

On my bed in that same room.

In a circle in Africa playing duck, duck goose with 30 kids, one in my lap.

On a plane to China.

Behind the balcony at New Orleans Seminary.

On a wooden bench in South Carolina.

The night of that tear-draining cry.

I am considering not sharing this list of places with you. I’m not just saying that to increase your intrigue. They are the places where I had moments when I was certain I was in the presence of God. Typing them out and blasting them into cyberspace does more than betray intimacy, it’s because I know that if you were to go to any one of them, retrace any of the steps that lead me to them, they would hold no significance to you. Especially the Blanding Tower dorm room floor, gross. 

But today I know I need to dwell on those places. You’ve been here right? You’ve had these times when you’ve thought, “Welp, can’t really feel you right now, God. Real nice. See you later?” Is anyone else sarcastic with God during these times? Please, I’m not the only one?

I’m in a place were I want to feel God. There’s not anything crazy going on in my life: just a gentle nudge of being homesick. If I could write down the directions for getting to a  place of a soul-settling, arms-wrapped-around you moment with God; bind up my wisdom and put a pretty cover on the front I wouldn’t have to write anything else ever, or work again.  I could tell you and myself how to get "there". My work on this earth would be done... Harper Lee and I could hang out and drink coffee and we wouldn’t even have to discuss the fact that our one-writ wonders brought us there, we would just know. 

The reason I can’t pen it down, is because God came to me. Sure, I sought him out, as I have before and since, but these were places in time when my seeking seemed almost inconsequential. He was already where I was. I did not move Him towards myself. In these places, everything else diminished. Wondering if he could have really been there would have been like worrying whether there will be enough oxygen for the entire human race tomorrow.  You just don’t do it.  The circumstances of my life, either forged by my own determination or a result of obedience and grace swirled together with my emotions and my thoughts and my surroundings and the Truth invaded.

I think about Hagar, seeing the well in Genesis 21, and I wonder if God did not send her out into the wilderness just to meet with her there. Just to show her, beside that well, (a recurring theme) that she was not alone, that he was real. She had resigned her son to his death, and God made a way for them.  

I cannot call you or myself to any action other than to consider who He really is. Consider his very essence of being everywhere, at all times, and his ability to break into our blinding circumstances and redirect us towards himself.  He gives us special places where we get a glimpse into eternity; where we can see what it must be like to be with Him forever. Another place will come. Just wait.

“Desire not emotion to feel God, but desire God, and you might feel his presence.” Tim Keller