This feels really familiar.
I’m sitting at a café, SO happy to be drinking a cappuccino and not instant Nescafé, escaping into my headphones and grateful for a Wifi password that works.
This was my life on so many “off days” this year on the World Race. Internet, coffee, time with Jesus.
(And, if you’re lucky, air conditioning.)
But there are some differences today.
I’m wearing makeup and I did my hair this morning. I’m eating a gluten free, all organic energy bar and the water in my water bottle came from the tap. The people sitting around me are all chatting in English. I got here in a nice car, wearing a seat belt.
I’m back in America, and I’m alone.
I am lonely.
Part of me is even anxious because, WHERE THE HECK IS MY TEAM? Am I even ALLOWED to be here right now?? There’s a buddy rule! I shouldn’t be alone; what if someone tries to kidnap me or steal my very expensive laptop?
Also, I just spent HOW much money on a sandwich?
I look next to me, and there are two empty chairs.
In my head, images of my teammates’ faces, laughs, and life-giving feedback play in that space like a movie I forgot to pause. They are part of me, so they keep living on.
(The Holy Spirit is present with me, too. I know that.)
I miss this.
But everything feels different. And I almost break into tears in a public café, as families and business men eat organic soup and say lots of English words.
This is what it’s like, for me, to transition home from the World Race.
Some people ask me if I’m basically used to it yet, being home and back in America. I mean, I’ve been home a whole month.
But the truth is, I’ll never be the same. I’ll never be used to it.
And that’s how it’s supposed to be, really.
I’m totally altered.
The spirit within me has been completely overtaken by God’s.
And I know what it’s like now.
I know what it’s like to live in life-giving community that tells you how they feel. I know what it’s like to have people truly desiring to make you better and speak truth over you. Community that pushes you to be more Christ-like, that considers it normal to be deep and vulnerable, and that lives life with you as your church.
And so now, I’m lonely.
I’m noticing this is kind of a theme here in this country.
We don’t always talk about what’s going on with us. Some of us have better relationships with our devices than with the people we are trying to connect to on them.
We aren’t always freed to be ourselves, not fully, or trust that the people around us will love us deeply and intimately, the way Christ does. We might not even have any real people around us— just doing life alone and lonely.
It’s so weird being home, because I USED to think this was normal.
But it feels SO strange now.
I used to push people away and choose what to share. I thought living authentically meant being my best self all the time, but that’s not true.
Now, I miss having people to share my life with. To have someone next to me that would annoyingly push through my bubble and make me talk about my feelings.
Someone that would recognise my weirdness in a café in America, would know by looking at my face, and make me talk about it. Would speak truth over me and remind me THIS IS JUST A SEASON. That God has given me a Spirit of love, and I can reach out! I can CREATE the community that I know Jesus calls us into as His body. I can be the one who gets vulnerable and open.
So even though I am in this café surrounded by people and feeling utterly alone, I know two things:
1. I have the Best Friend, Counselor, and Truth inside of me in the Holy Spirit and I will NEVER be alone.
2. There are probably other people I love who could do with a good dose of annoying love that pushes into their comfort zone. As I learned over and over on the Race, often the best way to receive love is to give it first so there is space for us to receive love from others.
Ok, 3 things.
3. And I also know that though my physical Squad family isn’t here next to me, ooh-ing and aahh-ing over the fanciness of this café, how excited we are to be able to read the menu, and celebrating the “win” of sitting in air-con on a 90-degree day and using a Western toilet…
“Can you believe the menu has English on it?? And there’s REAL coffee!”
…I know that wherever they are, they are still doing those things. That everything we experienced together was wonderful and real and true and Christ-filled, and that Christ also knew we would some day be apart again.
They have given me so much, and I have loved them so hard.
I carry them in me, and I in them.
And we are all carrying Christ around together.
So we’re not alone!
I am rejoicing in the familiar things, and learning to embrace the unfamiliar.
I’m learning that my emotions aren’t always truth and that transition means a million different things.
And even when I feel weird and awkward and teary and “like nobody understands!!”, Jesus understands— reminds me I’m a stranger on this planet anyways. I’m yearning for Heaven, and that He’s on this journey with me.
The place I’m in now could do with a whole lot of love…exactly the kind I’ve been missing.
So I reach out to the guy reading a Bible at the next table and make joyful conversation with the guy at the counter. I speak encouragement over my dear sister in Christ when I see her, and pray protection and power over the people I miss. I receive grace for my awkwardness and joy and laughter in the memories of this year.
And really…everything’s okay.
Man, I still love a great cappuccino.
Some things never change.
To find out what I’m doing next and how you can be a part of it, check out my last blog HERE!
