It’s stiflingly hot. The air is thick and someone around me is wearing cologne that makes it even more thick. New friends and newer friends around are praising and praying His name in Portuguese. The song quiets and prayers are shouted. I hum my own prayer and sway, lost in worship. Lost in my own head with my American, English speaking God.
A new song comes on and normally I would sing along to the words, albeit being so unfamiliar. I butcher syllables but God knows, right? But this song, this one, it’s next to impossible to follow. Fast and emphatic and big words. So many big words.
So I hummed along until I found a part I could pronounce. “Mais e mais, mais e mais, mais e mais.”Over and over again. More and more, more and more, more and more, Father. I found myself singing it. And then shouting it. And then belting it. I started praying over what was happening in my heart as I felt more and more loved, “mais e mais”, more and more excited, “mais e mais.”
He took me back to a time, a moment, really, when I was sitting and talking with a friend. We were chatting about our lives and therapy and coffee and our lives again, as friends do. Weaving in and out of depth and tears and laughter, as close friends do. Or at least my beautiful, amazing, close friends/sisters do. She began to tell me about her therapy. She told me that her therapist really only says one phrase, over and over again, to her.
“Tell me more.”
I was in disbelief. Seriously? You vent and vulnerably share some long hidden monologue and he says, “Tell me more.”Where’s the encouragement? The validation. The acceptance and love. What about the role of the therapist and his feelings? What happens to how he might use that?
Over the past few months since I’ve had that conversation, I’ve thought more and more about that statement. In my own therapy, with my clients, as well as, as an individual. And I started to see how much I might enjoy therapy, or relationship or friendship, like that.
What if every time I told a friend a story about my life, they said, “Tell me more.”There are so many instances that I find myself saying one thing, telling one story, to a friend, but feeling something deeper. Or, really, the genuine, real story is about 3 layers underneath that first story. We have a responsibility to uncover ourselves but as Christ-followers, we also have a responsibility to ask the tough questions and be patient with our brothers and sisters as they figure it out.
I was talking to another friend the other day who I am exceptionally real with. He noticed something was wrong with me and asked what was going on. Because we already have this established, authentic relationship, I asked him, “Which version of what’s going on do you want?”He was a little offended, in a loving, well-meaning way, and said “What do you think? The real one, of course.”I appreciated his frustration with me. He was essentially saying, “Christi, I accept all of you. Trust me and tell me more.”But to tell him the real stuff meant that I had to get underneath the layers, all of the versions of this story I could tell, and get vulnerable.
I don’t think I’m the only one who has these layers. Who has different versions of what’s going on with them in each moment. For me, my first layer is accompanied by the “I only kind of know you”version of my story. This version shares enough vulnerability that you’ll feel cared for, but not enough that I might feel like I’ve risked anything in telling you. I won’t give you much but smiles and nods here. Affirming you and leaving my needs in the dust.
The next version of my story I would tell is a little longer. Maybe it would take 10 minutes to the first version’s five. It holds less smiles and more emotion and risk for me. I generally start to have expectation for the person I’m sharing with. After all, I’m getting a little bit vulnerable. I expect to be heard and cared for here.
And then there’s the third version. Whew, this one. This is the one where I have no idea how long it will take to tell you this doozie of a story. I might cry. I might not. Really, I have no stinking idea what may come out of me. Wow, is it risky. Here, I’m all of me that I know but I’m also all of me that I don’t know. I’m Christi unfolding. Right before you. Here is scary. This version of the story is the real stuff. And this is the place where you affect me. Where I’m changed. This is what you get when you keep saying, “Tell me more.”
So what if we allowed our therapy, our friendships, our relationships with people and relationship with God to be at a “tell me more”place. Where we’re unfolding like crazy. What if we were so willing to be so open that we would answer, “tell me more”when our friends ask it of us? And what if we were such good listeners that we would be willing to wait and keep saying it?
How might we grow and learn more of ourselves?
We might unfold before each other. We might be touched by people. We might hear ourselves and others in new ways. Gosh we’d change and be changed. Gosh we’d love well.
And in the way that understanding ourselves as Christ-followers does, we learn more of who God is. Because if we understand the creation don’t we understand the creator? And vice-versa?
So what if we prayed, “God, tell me more. More and more of you. Father, show me more and let me unfold before you. Maybe, God, I’ll come to you with version one of my story and myself, but Father let me have patience to wait before you as you say, ‘Tell me more, my beloved.’”
Wow would our relationship with our Father change. Wow would we start to see Him differently.
Here, in the place where we unravel and unfold, He gets to be faithful. He gets to be mighty. He gets to be Him. And there’s space for you to see it and just be you. Unfolding.
So maybe my friend’s therapist was right more than he ever thought. Because here, in a hot, smelly, church in Mozambique. In a little dusty beach town called Quelimane, God whispered, “more and more”to me.
And I shouted back, “Mais e mais, Father.”
