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I am a Stephen Minister. In our training we learn to listen, to walk beside our care receiver, to let go and let God, to be the care-giver and know that God is the cure-giver.
As simple as that sounds, in my time as a Stephen Minister (since the mid-1990s) I have learned to practice silence. To take the cacophony and urgency of the world and set it aside for an hour or so when I meet with my care receiver. Easy enough, right? Not for me. I am a fixer. I know the answers, I can see how to get from there to here in five easy steps. Which is absolutely the wrong answer. The wrong approach. The opposite of the Stephen Ministry guidelines. So how do I find God, to listen, to be what my care receiver needs? After all, I’m a lay person. I don’t have the magic touch. I don’t even have the answers. What I found, when getting ready to meet with my care receiver, is to take a few minutes after I pull into the parking spot. I shut off my car. I sit quietly. I don’t actually pray for guidance, or insight, or anything other than allowing myself to be quiet. And listen. I let that quiet, that knowing that I (we) are not alone, follow me into the meeting place. To be in prayer, either together or silently. To connect with the person I have been tasked to connect with. To listen. I have listened as I helped an elderly woman refill her hummingbird feeders. Every week. I have listened as I helped a care receiver make cookies for a special event. I have listened as children create havoc around me, knowing their noise is perfectly fine. I have listened as a care receiver talked about the spouse she just lost. I know that I was never the only one listening. In that space there is another, one, the One who was there before me.
Being a Stephen Minister is fulfilling. It has been heartbreaking, hard even. But it has given me the time to just be quiet, to listen, to know that prayers are heard, to just be. To know that God is there.
Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God.
Sue Burkholder
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