by Kat Silverglate  Copyright 2022

Our son loves coffee. Hot coffee. Cold coffee. Coffee makers. Pots. Presses. Cold brew units. Burr grinders with precision grind gradients. Grind scales. Goose neck pour over kettles. Cups. Mugs. Demitasses. Filters. Frothers. Frothing pitchers. Tampers. The difference between Flat White, Cortado, and Cappuccino. And why Kinto is the only coffee-honoring option for the java-consuming commuter.

So when he announced that he planned to spend a portion of a college summer working on a coffee farm, it didn’t come totally from left field. No, the left-field zinger didn’t land until he shared that the farm was in Peru… in the deep jungle of Peru. Trying to sound supportive and calm on that first phone call, I decided to stay far away from the parade of horribles that suddenly crowded the streets of my imagination. 

“Sounds adventurous. Who’s going with you?”

“Nobody. I’m going by myself.”

The sound of my eye lids slamming shut as I took a deep stay-calm-Mama-bear breath must have echoed through the phone. The reality was, he didn’t need our permission: he was an adult, he’d earned the money to pay for the trip, and he’d proven himself responsible in countless ways. Still, the remote jungle of Peru—alone? I don’t remember all the words we exchanged, but our conversations leading up to his trip came in staccato moments like this: 

“Do you know anybody who has worked on this particular coffee farm?”

“I don’t. But I’ve done a lot of research, and I’ve spent time connecting with others my age who’ve done things like this. I feel comfortable going.”

My silence, eyelid slamming, deep breaths, and silent prayers took on a bit of a rhythm in the weeks that led to his departure. I wish I could say that I didn’t let that parade of horribles march from my mind to the warmth of my mouth to the short walk on the platform of my tongue to the tip where, one by one, they performed high dives into the air between us.

Let’s just say, I might  have asked the question, “have you thought about ______” a few gazillion times. Don’t get me wrong. He asked many people for input (including us) as he planned the trip, shared the detailed itinerary so we could find him if there was an emergency, and generously littered our chats with assurances. 

On departure day, my husband and I drove him to the airport and prayed a blessing over him. Then we watched the Terminal 3 doors shut behind him. Slam, breathe, pray. The empty-nest-college-drop-off day was starting to look like a visit to Disney by comparison. It wasn’t that we didn’t have confidence in him. It wasn’t that he didn’t have good judgment. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust him. It was the far-away-ness. It was the difficulty communicating when there wasn’t a cell signal. It was the long stretches of not knowing exactly where or how he was. It was all the things we couldn’t control. 

From the moment he landed in Lima, I spent inordinate amounts of time thinking about where he was. Wondering if he was OK. When I eventually realized that his phone was still tied to our “Find My iPhone” app, I started to cope with my anxiety by checking his location. There was something calming about seeing a firm dot on the screen. On the day of his twenty-two-hour bus ride into the mountainous jungle, the parade floats driving through my head were massive. One moment I’d see the dot on the screen move and decide he was OK. The next moment the dot would stop, and I’d well up with fear. I did my best to pray and give my trust to God. But then, sometimes minutes later, I’d snatch it back.

It was as if I was telling God:

“I’ll trust you later. Right now, I need to worry.”

I was stacking up trust like I sometimes stack dirty dishes in the sink or paperwork in my office —

“I’ll get to that later. Right now, I need to do this.”

The problem with stacking, of course, is the more we pile on, the bigger the mountain gets.

Eventually, exhausted from all this stacking, I plunked myself down in the family room. The dot had been still on the screen for what felt like an eternity. It was almost 11 p.m. I was playing out kidnap scenarios in my head. I stopped and looked up.

“Lord, if you let this dot move just one more time, I will put this phone away and trust you.”

Almost immediately, it moved. I turned off the app. Literally, I moved my trust from an iPhone application to the God of the universe who knit my son in my womb. The irony of it all struck me as I studied my screen shots from the prior hours. If you are holding one of our physical mission packs, you are looking at some of the screen shots from that day. It all sounds absurd now as I recount it for you here; but, at the time, I was experiencing my own ascent up a different type of mountain.  I was on trust-mountain with God.

I can’t help but think that when the scripture commands in Proverbs 3:5 -- “Trust in the Lord with all  your heart” – it is a nod toward our common struggle.

All? Really God?

The reality is that trusting in the Lord is, in one sense, a one-and-done deal. We give Him our lives. Walk out in faith and ask Him to lead. Put our trust in Him, the ultimate trust. But we also walk with Him day by day and make the choice to put our trust in Him circumstance by circumstance. Issue by issue. Dish by dish. Even after we trust the Lord with our very lives, we must still make the choice to trust Him with our circumstances — until the urge to snatch it back is gone or we are gone from the sight of all those we love and are standing in His very presence. This kind of trust isn’t a one-and-done decision; it’s a give-until-gone walk on trust-mountain with the Lord.

Our October Mobile Mission:

If you receive our physical mission packs in the mail, you will find two equipping pieces this month. The first is a large sticker that says, “DO NOT STACK.” The second is a strip of five small stickers that all say, “GIVE UNTIL GONE.”

This October, we are going to develop the spiritual practice of giving circumstantial trust to God. Place that DO NOT STACK sticker in a place where you can see it all month long. Pray for the Lord to show you when you are stacking. When you are telling Him, “I’ll trust you later, right now, I need to worry/spin/fret/____.” When we’ve done all we know to do and trust is what is required, will we pause and deliberately give our trust to Him until the urge to snatch it back is gone?

And when that urge to snatch back our trust persists, will you consider using those GIVE UNTIL GONE stickers as a reminder to keep returning to the Lord until you find yourself trusting Him with all your heart in this circumstance. Perhaps use them in your journal to pour your heart out to God or to record a moment when you were able to leave the circumstance in His hand without stacking.

We will all be giving our circumstantial trust to God until we are gone from this earthly life and see Him face to face.

Share Your Story:

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Let's Pray:

May the Lord keep and bless us and cause His light to shine upon us and may we be open to the Lord’s pokes prods and nudges this month as we learn to notice our temptation to stack. May we practice a give-until-gone trust. Help us Lord to give our trust to You until the urge to snatch it back leaves us or we are standing in your presence face to face.

Amen? Amen!