I wasn't planning on yesterday being an emotional day. It was what has become a typical Sunday for me; online worship, trip to WAL-MART, work on remote teaching, laundry, reading, and since I don't workout on Sundays, getting my 15,000 steps recorded on my FITBIT. There was also something on my social calendar. At 5 PM, WCS was hosting a going away party for Mike and Jennifer White and their kids, Madison and Drew. Mike and Jennifer went to Harding University although they did not know each other, were hired at Westbury Christian for the school year of 1997-1998, fell in love, got married, had terrific kids, helped make WCS a wonderful place, and now are relocating to Arkansas, the state of Mike's birth. So, on June 28, 2020, there was a celebration for this family which has meant so much to me and our school community. They've fed me, let me teach their children, partnered on mission trips, lived in the same complex, encouraged me, etc. And I'm not alone; many, many have their own story of the Whites. Due to the pandemic, it was an outdoor drive by their home, drop off a card, and show your gratitude event. I arrived before anyone else so I was able to park, take some pictures, and try to tell them how much they mean to me. I'm better writing it than saying it. The weather cooperated and there was a good turnout. I already miss them.
But yesterday morning as I contemplated the day, I recalled the day there was a celebration for me when I moved to Houston. It hit me that it might have fallen on the same day so I double checked and sure enough; June 28, 1998. It was held at our church building in Lebanon, Tennessee and so many people showed up, I was overwhelmed. Those who came wrote notes/letters to me and assembled them in a notebook for me entitled, A few words for Steve..... everybody needs a few good friends. I read each and everyone except for the one from Myra Sloan whose note I framed when I arrived in Texas because it referenced that I should write a book which I did. I also rummaged through a box and found some pictures from the reception; not all of them as I'm not very organized. Before I made my way over to the White's house, I had spent two hours digging through my past which suddenly doesn't seem like all that long ago.
Riding to Fry's Electronics to get a laptop battery this morning, which I found out they don't sell anymore, Jim Croce's Photographs And Memories circulated through my Coach Hawley's Groovy Tunes CD, striking a nerve. As I looked through the pictures, I realized some of the good folks who were there on my behalf are no longer alive. The little children are married and some have little children of their own. I did notice I wasn't wearing a belt as was my custom back then. But the words on the yellow paper were what got to me, causing me to choke back tears a couple of times. I'm not sure if I've sat down and read through the whole book since the day they came into my possession but it was like reading them for the very first time. There were well wishes and repetitive themes; how they prayed I would find a new church home and a wife, how they would miss me and hoped I would visit, how the Lord must have something for me to do in Texas. Some of the sentiments were from those I was very close to and some I knew in passing. But here's what hit me yesterday; what was penned on my behalf was in many ways almost prophetic. So much has happened since that day; the death of my parents, 9-11, twenty-three missions to Honduras/Haiti/China/Vietnam, returning to coaching high school for a year, putting down church roots and school roots in Room 258, becoming a blogger, preaching twelve weddings, and on and on. Maybe for the first time I really grasped a sense of a verse we always memorize in my classes:
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
The details of my life are more important to me than anyone else but the details are what are lives become. You've heard that line- how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. That's amazingly accurate. And so in the note I dropped into the box on the Whites' front lawn, I asked them to imagine twenty-two years from that moment, which will be, Lord willing, June 28, 2042: what they will be and where they will be. That's where I was yesterday and maybe even lingering a little bit this evening. They've got so much to look forward to. The world is theirs to impact.
Applicable quote of the day:
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
Jack Kerouac (On the Road)
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org
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