getting comfortable with the uncomfortable

We are officially a week into ministry in Peru, and time seems to be crawling as it flies through the air; quite a paradox.

This month has a theme for me:  getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.

I don't just mean the ever-increasing amount of mosquito bites covering my entire body (including my face), the substantial heat, the fairly dangerous community we live in, being faced with extreme poverty around us each day, or the tiny buses that seat five people in the U.S. and twenty-five people in Peru. The most pressing issue of uncomfortability is that I'm on a new team, Team Arise&Go. I feel oddly blessed in that I grew extremely close with Team Doulos in a short three weeks and have those relationships to count on and continue to deepen for the next ten months while I get to create new ones with new people on a new team.

That said, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard to change teams after only one month. 
The change was unexpected and sudden – I found out on a Wednesday night and changed on Sunday. Typically when teams change they happen after month two at the soonest, so while I was told to bring no expectations on the Race I had apparently packed away the one that I'd be on my beloved team for at least eight weeks. 

Something people don't seem to know about me is that I don't push into relationships well. I don't like going places I'm not explicitly invited (interpersonally and literally) and assume that if you're not begging for me to be with you then you don't want me to be. That means that large groups often intimidate me and established relationships among others seem off-limits with no space or need or desire for a Meredith. Rejection and loneliness are definitely two crippling fears that I fight, thus being put onto a team that had already spent a month growing together and making memories and inside jokes seemed pretty much like the least appetizing thing ever, especially when I already felt fully known by my team and was remarkably comfortable with them. Being known is so divine, something I've felt few times in my life, and finding such a level of comfort so quickly seemed like a blessing; not that the team change nullifies the blessing it was. However, God did not bring me on the Race to stay where I'm comfortable.

Have you ever seen a tidy flower garden in someone's front yard? The flowers seem to be so intentionally placed. Pruned, dainty, orderly, colorful, manicured. Full of purpose, bringing beauty and a bright spot to every passerby, maybe even causing a smile or delicate gasp as they catch people's eyes. 

But have you ever seen a field of wildflowers? Tall grass, uneven stems, some blossoms bolder than others, no two blooms the same. Flowers being wild, untamed, unhindered, growing freely and existing naturally as they were intended. Bold colors waving in a gentle breeze of nature as it had to be in Eden, everything wild and calm all at once. Harmony.

Planting roots in a tidy garden is safe, it's established, it's comfortable. But what if we were meant to be like the wildflowers? Meant to be yanked from our garden and willing to be replanted somewhere wild, somewhere where the wind blows us to and fro and those around us don't look like we do, somewhere where the gardener comes not to keep us trimmed and pruned and put together but to encourage us to blossom in different ways, uneven and imperfectly, wholly as we were created to be, to become something unrestrained and free? 

I got uprooted from my garden.

That's not bad.

It's just uncomfortable.

But I'd much rather be a wildflower and to do that, I have to leave my garden of familiar people, familiar relationships and familiar patterns, habits and processes.

Your prayers are appreciated as always, but I'm looking forward to the process. New roots mean new nutrients. New soil means new neighbors. New location means new views, new insights, new perspective.

New means, well, new. 

I didn't come on the Race to be anything else.
m