“What’ll you have to drink, then, m’dear?” he asked, cheerfully as ever. We met our friend at a little coffee shop and bar, as we wandered around and explored our little town in Northern Cyprus, where we made our home for one month.
Kelly and I had decided to check out a little coffee shop and bar one afternoon to do some writing, reading and just to scope it out! We loved the atmosphere and just felt like there was something special for us in that place. Within the next couple days we had our whole team and some friends there to check out the owner’s band which was playing that night! The bartender came up to our table and instantly we knew there was something special about this guy. He had this crazy contagious joy that just isn’t normal. As we chatted, we found out that he had pegged us as missionaries nearly as soon as we’d walked through the doors and shared with us that he too, was a believer. We were so excited to meet him that we went back again the following morning, when the place was a little quieter, to talk with him more. We ended up listening to worship music over the shop’s speakers, praying together with him and even meeting a couple other “M workers” whom he had told us about the night before! We continued to frequent this place as often as we could.
During the month in Cyprus, our team was empowered to be a part of something called Unsung Heroes. “The vision of the UH Program is to connect and network with Unsung Heroes (men and women who are dedicated to serving some of the most impoverished populations in the world but are most likely unrecognized and unknown) in an effort to come alongside them and provide lift to their efforts to further the Kingdom.” This was an incredible opportunity that my team was so excited about pursuing! But it definitely came with its own set of struggles. Which city should we live in? How do we find these unsung heroes? What does it look like to come alongside them? After a week of what looked like a lot of prayer and searching, the floodgates opened. We had the opportunity to work with a local university ministry, made contact with multiple M workers in the area, and built relationship with a local church. Northern Cyprus had found a sweet place in our hearts, and our little coffee shop and bar was no exception!
On our last evening in Cyprus, Landry, Joelle and I sat at the bar, physically and mentally tired, but determined to see our friend one last time. “Whiskey and Coke, please.” He chuckled at my request- I guess it’s not what he’d been expecting my order to be. I immediately felt very self-aware. “Hm… should I have ordered something different? Maybe a whiskey and coke isn’t what a missionary should order…” To be honest, wondering at my drink order was probably, truly, the furthest thing from his mind, or the minds of my teammates, but this cerebral “spiral” I was going down was revealing to me something about myself that God had been working on with me all month.
Cyprus had been a really challenging month for me, personally. Please don’t get me wrong, we had incredible opportunities for ministry, my team grew in maturity and intimacy, and we had all kinds of amazing interactions and formed great friendships. But throughout it all, I was struggling and struggling hard. I was fighting an internal battle that had begun in Morocco. Our squad’s debrief at the end of the month had been a really powerful time of seeking God’s heart and spending intentional time with leadership and other squad mates. But when you give a bunch of Jesus people a week to be free to pour into each other… stuff goes down. The Father used multiple people to speak truth over me, revealing so many lies that I had been believing about myself and God. The details of these are for another blog, but for now, what you need to know is that because of this recent “demolition” (the only word I could think of to accurately describe how it felt), I now felt completely and utterly spent. My daily conversations with the Lord in Cyprus would look something like “Okay so… you’ve done the demolition… when are we going to rebuild? What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to be? I have nothing left.” That last part was definitely a flare of the dramatic, not reality, but it was definitely how I felt. When the masks you’ve been wearing are suddenly removed, you first feel exposed, not free.
That night, we listened intently as our friend shared pieces of his story with us, taking us on a journey filled with adventure, love, pain, confusion, compromise, conviction, healing and hope. Some stories were scars, and others were wounds, but all were part of what made him who he was. As we engaged in conversation, asked questions and answered them, I felt more alive than I had the whole month long. My heart was actually feeling things. My mind was actually engaging without my forcing it to. I was having my own side conversation with the Lord. “What’s different? What’s changed?” Even my teammates had noticed a difference in the way I was acting that night. On our walk home they told me that I’d seemed very “myself” or “in my element” while we were there. I was not only thankful for this encouragement, but I marveled at what was happening. I had spend that whole morning and afternoon by myself, walking around the city center, talking with the Lord, consciously, intentionally, submitting my thoughts, actions and self to him. By the time we got to the bar, this was starting to happen naturally.
God was finally helping me to realize that he never intended me to meet someone else’s expectations. He never asked me to be like anyone other than himself. He doesn’t ask me to have all the answers. He simply asks me to love him. Turns out, if you stop thinking about how everyone else is perceiving you, you can actually be present, listen to what they’re saying and not be worrying about how you’re going to respond, before they’ve even finished their statement. My prayer had become: “Ok, Lord.” I can actually walk in freedom and respond in a genuine and truthful way. Basically I had come to the realization that I can be me completely… and God actually enjoys it. He’s not wishing that I were someone else. He’s not waiting for me to become something I’m not. Yes, there’s a level of growth that’s expected to happen, but he delights in every step. Someone shared this quote with me that says “What father isn’t delighted in the first steps of his baby boy? But what father would be satisfied with anything less than the mature stride of a full grown man?”
You don’t become who God made you to be by trying to become who God made you to be. It doesn’t work that way. We are all made in his image. You become who God made you to be by trying to become like Him. We won’t ever be like him completely, but it’s in pursuing him that we become who we are intended to be. Whether it is ministry, community, or my drink order, my desire is that my identity would be hidden in his. Thanks, Cyprus. Thanks, Jesus.
