“starting where you’re stuck”
a saying that the lovely shauna nyquest writes about in her book “cold tangerines.” a quite amazing woman with an even more amazing way of celebrating the simplest pleasures of life. a book about celebration, and loss, and God, and love, travel, holidays, and taking the mundane and turning into much more. a book a few girls and i have been reading together since we’ve been on the race. a simple pleasure i sincerely choose to celebrate because it brings me great great joy.
right now, i’m feeling stuck.
I’m feeling stuck because so much has happened since the last blog i’ve written. NO CLUE WHERE TO START!! i’m alive, first of all!!!!! made it through my longest travel day since we’ve been on the race, a whopping 78 hours. 3 separate plane rides, 35 hours on bus after bus after bus, a ferry boat ride across a delta, and 2 buckeyes to get us all the way from haiti, to new york, new york to qatar, qatar to south africa, and south africa to botswana – to delta cross ministry in a little town called seronga, botswana. our home for the next two months. BUT!!! before we get ahead of ourselves, in between traveling to our third country we had a 3 day debrief in Johannesburg, South Africa to get us refocused, rested and ready for our next country. During our time in Johannesburg, we stayed at a hostel with other wanderers of the world. We got to know some of them and their stories. We explored the area of Rosebud, the little town of our hostel, spent hours in coffee shops, drinking the most exotic teas and juices, and smoothies they had to offer. We spent a lot of time going from thrift store to thrift store, looking at old books and maps, and super cool antiques. There was a mall down the road from our hostel where we spent some time in, as well as a salon where my friend Lillabea chopped off her luscious locks. Empowering. Honestly, long, grown out hair, she hasn’t cut in ages and on the whim, it didn’t matter. New season of life, new memories to be made. Change. Our lives right now, constantly changing. At the mall, every Sunday, they have a parking deck market on the fourth floor. God used the people of SA to intrigue and inspire me. Some of which were in this parking deck market. Especially a woman named Bev.
A group of girls and I were walking through the market stopping at every other stand or little store in awe of the fashion, the smells, and the tastes of South Africa. Alluring. Truly. Along the way, we stumbled upon this little section of the market near the entrance, where a woman sat in a chair and kindly invited us into her space to look at the dresses and skirts hanging in her shop. We walked in and all of us began looking for some long skirts and dresses we could wear in Botswana, because to be completely honest; we weren’t entirely prepared for two months worth of long skirts and dresses. We walked in and I noticed the woman sitting in the chair. Simple.
Nothing extravagant or huge, I asked “how are you today?” she answered back to me,
“i’m okay, how are you?”
You see, I’m a complainer when it comes to the habitual “i’m good, how are you” response to a basic how are you question. Its so normal for us as people to say “good” when things are falling apart in our lives, when our days aren’t looking too great, and when we simply put, aren’t “good.” Why would we tell a stranger about where we’re at? Why do they care? — well, you silly human, why ask? For a mediocre good? Because it’s societal to ask “how are you” as a greeting? I understand that, but I value words too much to get a mediocre good when the ground is falling from your feet. For me, personally, when I ask how you’re doing, I actually want to know where you’re at. Whether you’re a complete stranger or not, so for this woman to say “okay,” I was sincerely intrigued by her response. I told her my exact thoughts on what my feelings are towards the habitual “i’m good’s” and how I really appreciated her for answering me based on where she actually was. I then asked her, “why just okay?”
Simple.
A follow up question, nothing pressing or too hard and she answered honestly. She told me about her 22 year old son who was just admitted to a rehabilitation center for drug addiction, she told me about how her and her husband are struggling to push through because of all the hurt and pain her son has caused them. She told me about how her son hit rock bottom so hard that he began stealing her valuable possessions from her home to feed his addiction. She told me about how badly it hurts to see someone you love fall so hard into habits that seem unbreakable. She told me about how helpless she felt, how her and her husband have been fighting and she was simply put “just okay.” She talked more about her daughter who also struggled with addiction and how she’d received help and is an entirely new person, a sympathetic, lovely, strong woman. A woman, her daughter, that is living in freedom. Free of the chains that once held her so far down, the darkness became normal to her. I encouraged her in that, her daughter is completely changed because of help and how incredible it was that her son is seeking the same help. Her eyes fixed on mine and hung onto the hope that I was giving her, that wasn’t at all my hope to give. The Lord knew she needed to be encouraged, and He aligned our stars, then and there. After some time spent talking, I finally got this woman’s name, Bev. Names are special, they’re personal and cool and hold meaning and stories and memories all tied into a person, a name. But what’s also super cool is that you don’t need to have a name to have conversation of depth with a stranger. All it takes is vulnerability, for some, vulnerability is horrifying. Others, welcome it open arms, I do, and if I didn’t, the Lord wouldn’t have been able to show up in the conversation Bev and I had. After getting her name, I asked “Bev, would you mind if I prayed for you?”
Simple.
She answered pretty quickly “please, please pray for my son, my husband and I.” I held her hands in the corner of her little shop and prayed for her. I talked to poppa about how extremely grateful I was that He’d crossed Bev’s path with mine and that He led our conversation. I prayed over her son, freedom, revival and reconciliation, I prayed that he’d seek out the Lord and know that our God is a God of love, forgiveness, and vitality. Literally, the Lord is vital. I prayed that her son would know life with the Lord. Know that the Lord is life. Not in a cliche weird middle school “ball is life” deal, but that God and life, go hand in hand. I prayed over her marriage that her and her husband would choose to pursue one another even when times were hard, that they’d choose to lean on one another rather than run from one another. I just prayed. And after that, we talked some more, the girls shopped around, and we carried on.
I’m learning a ton of what it looks like to live it out. By live it out, i mean live everything out. Live out God. Incorporate the Lord into basic conversation. Everyday. Seek the Lord in the mundane. Live out love, in ways I never have. Live out loud. Feel deeply, the heights of hope, but also the depths of despair. Literally externalize and over-communicate my feelings, something I’ve always struggled to do. This season of life from across the world, believe it or not, wasn’t promised to be rainbows and daisy’s. The people on my squad, My team, My girls and my guys, are struggling. I’m struggling. Things are rocky back home, people are struggling with loss, brokenness, and having to live with people they barely know, some that have absolutely nothing in common but one thing. God. There’s beauty in that. God is the glue that holds us together. He’s good. Even when we’re not, He is. Even when we think He isn’t, He still is. My idea of normalcy is blown out of the water. My understanding of the Lord is constantly changing. I’m constantly changing. It’s a process, there are, indeed growing pains. It can be hard and uncomfortable and exhausting, but one thing remains. The Lord, is faithful. He shows up, if we allow Him to. And when we do, we’ll meet the Bev’s of the world, the honest, hurting, people of the planet who thirst for God. A God that I know, that I love. Why wouldn’t I want that for someone? Sometimes it takes a little more than we’re willing to sacrifice. Hard, uncomfortable conversations of transparency with people that we have the opportunity to push, without knowing it, are also pushing us. I encourage you, open up a little more, be more intentional with your words. Ask how people are doing with sincerity. Something I wrote down in my journal on November 21, 2017 ” I pray relentless pursuit of intentionality, sincerity and awareness in abundance,” something I not only pray over the girls i’m living with, but also you reading this blog. That you are relentless in pursuing people intentionally. That you’re sincere and sympathetic. That you mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. I pray an abundance of awareness, of the people around you, the hurting, the broken, the joyful, and the compassionate. That you choose to give as you have received, and allow the Lord to serve you through the people around you. That you, are, awake. I’m learning a lot about what it looks like to be awake. I can only pray that you are awake to, and if not, i pray that you wake up. God is always knocking, and sometimes we forget to simply put, open the door. This is me pushing you, live life; doors wide open, you won’t regret it.
