Last Days in Greece

From Belize to Greece was a bit of a weather shock for my body. Extreme hot to extreme cold. But waking up in the cold is usually one of my favorite things. I remember mornings in autumn at home where I would wake up on the weekend, put on jeans and a hoodie and head down to the camp to make breakfast and visit with a group for a little while before the day officially begun.

I want to share so much of my heart with you, friend, whomever you are. The reason why I'm writing in clear vulnerability is because I feel like if I can't share these memories with you, that they might slip away from me.

Let's start at the places in between. That is what I call them. They are the memories, the connections between something then and something now. I see them everywhere once I recognized them as such. Who knew that familiarizes of my life would follow me around the world. Smells, songs, people that would take me back to a different time.

I walked back from our bus stop and getting closer to the street of houses we are living on the smell of burning wood in cold air greeted me. My eyes teared with the memory of throwing the football outside with my brother on fall evenings. The smoke would billow out of our chimney outside, calling us back in to warm our chilly fingers. Always with dinner waiting as well. He always would beg me to go out and play with him, warning that there wouldn't be many more times where we would find time to. I don't know how he knows the future so well.

Last week we were driving our nine passenger van back home from the warehouse that we'd been working in for days. We got an invitation from a sweet old Greek couple that owned a olive wood shop. Shelves laden with carefully and expertly carved bowls, spoons, game boards, and animal figures. If you could name it, it was there. They asked us to come into their workshop and see how things were made. We gladly came, ready to learn. When I walked into the basement work shop I was brought back in time to one just a little smaller and a little older than the one I stood in. All the sensations flooded my brain. The feel of rough wood. The sound of carving wood and machinery. The smell of saw dust and pipe smoke. The sunshine coming through windows that desperatley needed a wash. Even the man behind the whole opperation had the same callused hands and tucked in button up that I had seen times before. His head down and his white hair peaking out around an old hat, I almost walked to hug him. I stopped when he looked up and his eyes looked in mine like the stranger I was. This wasn't my grandfathers workshop. This wasn't his style of art. These weren't his tools or his hands holding them. Although this mans glasses and attire could match my Papas. This was not him, Papa had gone home a long time ago. He'd gone to meet our Savior and Grandma had joined him a short year later. So I relished in the memory of that old Virginia house and that old hand build workshop that contained an old mans treasures. When we returned to our rooms I looked up my grandfather on google to see if I could find any of his work. All I found was an obituary I had never read stating just an outline of Otis Virgil Stephens life. A good one at that.

We waited for a while by the van for the boys to come back off the mountain to tell us where the trail is. So I went on a little hunt for cool plants and found none that wouldn't cut me if I reached to touch them. I returned to the side of the van where the girls where chilling and notices some nice big rocks to I began assembling a familiar stack of perfectly shaped rocks. One on top of another they balanced. I thought back to when I first made one of these rock stacks. Dad and my backpacks heavy but worth it for the feast we would soon have. Arriving at our campsite and dad going to prepare a nice fire, I hung our hammocks and prepared for the night. I come back to a roaring fire and our cheese, french loaf dinner. Looking off to a little tower of rocks that someone must have made. I asked dad and he said it was the sign of a backpacker. Naturally, I had the building of these rock tower done by sundown. I know that if I see one around, dad is around too. So I made them all that afternoon. I figured go big or go home, I must have made ten rock towers that day to commemorate the coolness of my dad. And for me too, I have to keep my skills sharp for the trips to come when I get home.

With the coming winter, Christmas music is my way to celebrate. Becoming tired of the same popular dance music that the team had been playing for the last two weeks in the warehouse, I settled in my coat section of the back of the warehouse to sort and turned on a little music in my earphones. The bells and warmth flooded my brain and quickly singing along to it's the most wonderful time of the year. Of course I started dancing around the warehouse singing all the classics and thought about the sidewalks in downtown Atlanta where these had played many times. Holding my moms arm with hand and a hot coffee with the other we walked down the the streets like we are high school girlfriends. Laughing and people watching and eating only the freshest dinners. We went into posh shops and pretended like we fit in there. We would share secrets and sorrows. I've still never known a friend like my own mother. I've never known a woman so adventurous and so kind. Every year we will be walking those Atlanta streets at Christmas as she shares her memories of walking them with her girlfriends at my age. The life she lived before she settled down in a little mountain town and raised a little family.

How could I deny these moments affection in my heart? There are so many more times that the spaces in between take my breath. Even when they match themes that have occurred so many times over my life. Like the familiar phrase "Be still". I hear it and see it everywhere. I believe that these are orchestrated by my Father. They might be a teaching moment, a moment to romance me, or a moment to remind me of where I came from.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned from these are that I will have the same reminders when I move on to my next adventure. My time in Greece and in Belize will be permanently in my mind. I will remember these places just like I remember home while I'm here. I will long for the times back. But I will have to press on. So as I'm here in two of the most beautiful places, I will do my best to take it in. I've let my heart fall in love with this nomad life, this travelers way. I know now that the love affair will never end. As often as I will try to explain it to anyone when I return, my words will not do justice. I can only tell you the things I learned in the short life I've led. Being young has been a thing that's been hard for me to swallow. For I am so so young. I'm told I have time and I do, but do I want to live like that? No. I want to live radically. I want to love people with the heart that God wants me to, that being HIS legacy. Cause what more to leave on this earth than His legacy through a girl caught up in sharing her spaces in between. To live minimally in possessions and in worries but to live in the full maximum of His spirit, to live in full. To be filled by every sunrise wherever I am and obedient by every sunset. Pushing myself beyond what I think I can do and then being ready when God uses me for His purpose. Even as it could be leading a simple life.

George MacDonald writes these words,

"I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born into God's own thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking."

Mr. MacDonald makes a good point that Jesus says quite often in His word just about our minds. How precious and creative they are. How to guard and care for them. I know now to let my emotions out sometimes, to be okay with telling people when I need time alone to be the introvert I never knew I am, and to love the way I am. But the most wonderful thing about the mind is the memories it contains. It makes me take a little better care of them as I write in journals, try to rest, and keep making memories to keep it busy.

Now coming to a new transition that I don't know what will look like I can begin to put this busy mind of mine to rest sometimes. I can rest in who God is making me, blown and frail dust. But somehow filled with a new love and joy, pieced together by the memories of the spaces in between.

As I come to my last hours in Greece I'm so thankful. This time is bittersweet. We are headed to Istanbul for two days to just cover the place in prayer and to invite God's presence there. Please be praying for a safe entrance to a closed country. Lastly, we will return home to Belize on Thursday for debrief. A short ten days later I will be home in my little mountain town. A lot of time changes and I lot of life transitions. Thank you for following this journey of mine and praying unceasingly for me.