Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Outgoing (05/05/11)
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TITLE: Meet Your Maker | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sydney Avey
05/09/11 -
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Sunday morning and Shiloh is reading aloud from the Personal Times Weekly as she comes through the door of the Beanpunk Café. Joining her friends, she plops down on a worn leather couch and spreads the paper onto a table fashioned from a wooden shipping container and fitted with railroad wheels for legs.
“Tall, dark and handsome, I want some,” she sighs.
“May I point out that you are neither adventurous nor outgoing?” her friend Jaye says, shoving a cappuccino in front of Shiloh. The other girls are drinking concoctions with names like Bard’s Brew, Cupola Joe and Rococo Mocha.
“I don’t listen all that well, either,” Shiloh says. “But I’d like to be all those things.”
“Do you remember when you applied for a job as a pastry chef’s assistant and told them you knew how to decorate cakes when the only thing you ever decorated in your life was an Easter egg? Kay reminds her. “How did that work out for you?”
“I lasted about two hours,” Shiloh admits, slumping into a depression in the sofa’s seat.
“I’m just saying.” Kay returns to her refreshment – layers of espresso and Guinness.
Elle sets down her pewter mug of m.u.d. – a coffee blend of Mbeya, Urubamba and Djimah beans – and peers into Shiloh’s face. “Well I say, go for it”.
“How many mugs of m.u.d. have you had?” Shiloh asks Elle.
“We're not suggesting you misrepresent yourself,” Elle says, “just that you show up and see what happens. Maybe all he means by ‘outgoing’ is someone who is willing to go out with him.”
Shiloh has been texting all the while. She’s responded to the ad and received a message directing her to follow a set of GPS coordinates to a “public place where we can meet.” She drains her cappuccino and cedes her position in the conversation to her Scrabble board of friends. They are still debating the issue when she exits the café and fires up her handheld GPS.
A few blocks away, Shiloh finds herself in front of the Shiloh Community Church. Shiloh has never in her life set foot in a church, but the wordplay is irresistible. Does he know her name? Where should she look for him? He must have a terrific sense of humor.
A young man greets her and they exchange names. “Welcome Shiloh. Did you know that your name is a place of worship?” he asks her.
Courage floods her being and Shiloh blurts out, “Actually, I’ve never been in a church. I’m meeting someone.”
“Is your friend here yet?” he scans the small assembly inside the sanctuary.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met him,” Shiloh says. “I think I’ll just go in and take a seat and let him find me.”
Shiloh enters the meeting room, sits down in back and waits. Music puts her at ease. A time for prayer gives her space. Then she senses a presence beside her.
She prays, “Make me a better person.”
She hears, “Shiloh, I am your Maker. You are the person I made you to be. Walk with me and your life will be the adventure you seek.”
“But Lord,” somehow she knows his name, “You advertised for someone who is outgoing.”
“And Shiloh, you showed up.”
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