Gemstones 18/30
When we moved to Washington in 2010, I signed up for the coffee team.
Blue Apatite’s mom trained me.
We filled coffee pots, laughed through Sunday mornings, and every week she’d tell me another story about her son. Moms are the world’s best PR team. By the time I finally met him, I felt like I already knew him.
She wasn’t wrong.
Blue Apatite and Chrysocolla became part of our everyday life. I photographed their family more than once, watched their kids grow, celebrated milestones with them, and spent more hours serving beside them than I could ever count. They weren’t church friends. They were just…friends.
Blue Apatite was all heart.
He didn’t want kids sitting in rows watching worship happen. He wanted them leading it. For nearly ten years he handed elementary kids microphones, taught them how to lead songs, run lights, mix sound, click slides, and believe they had something worth offering. He trusted kids with real responsibility. They rose to meet it every single time.
Then everything got cleaner.
More polished.
More scripted.
Every room needed to match. Every service needed to look the same. Efficiency won. Heart lost.
Blue Apatite noticed.
He’d come to me with questions that made perfect sense.
“Why can someone we fly in get the microphone, but people sitting in our own church don’t?”
I’d explain it.
I’d defend it.
I’d smooth it over.
I was a really good gatekeeper.
Grace became the answer to everything. Not fixing the inconsistency. Not having the hard conversation. Just asking good people to carry it a little longer.
Blue Apatite trusted me.
That’s the part that still stings.
He wasn’t picking a fight.
He was trying to understand.
Chrysocolla never needed a stage to matter.
She’s creative. She’s funny. She’s a phenomenal mom. She works hard, takes care of people, and has this way of making everyone around her feel like they belong without making a production out of it. Some people decorate a room. She changes the atmosphere.
Life changed. Church wasn’t the center of everybody’s calendar anymore. We stopped bumping into each other three times a week, and friendships naturally spread out across work, kids, schedules, and everything else adulthood throws at us.
I still think about all the beautiful stones that passed through that place.
Every color.
Every personality.
Every gift.
Blue Apatite spent years helping kids find their voice.
Chrysocolla spent years helping people feel seen.
Those aren’t ordinary stones.
Neither were they.
While I was writing this, I kept hearing The Logical Song by Supertramp.
“Please tell me who I am.”
Funny how the people asking the healthiest questions were often the ones I spent the most time trying to reassure instead of listening to.
If I could do it again, I’d spend a whole lot less time guarding the shelf…
…and a whole lot more time protecting the stones.
Honestly, Sandie 
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