So I’m now on my second travel day within a week, on our way from the small town of Khok Kloi to Chiang Mai for the rest of our ministry this month. Twenty four hours and while I also want to be writing my next book, I thought I’d get a few blog thoughts down too.
We just wrapped up a week of ministry in a province of Thailand called Phang Nga. We’ve never been anywhere for just a week before, beside debrief, but that doesn’t really count. We did everything from singing in church and cleaning up afterwards to teaching English to yard work. Lots and lots of yard work.
Usually this would be a frustrating assignment for ministry. I mean, we’re in Thailand of all places, shouldn’t we be working in red light districts and loving the unlovable and all that? As anyone can tell you, pulling up weeds for hours in the hot sun isn’t exactly glamorous.
But God was truly merciful, he gave me and frankly all of us the grace to have a good and positive attitude during this time. When we arrived there I told myself that we only had a week so I was goon to make it count by doing my absolute best, whatever they had for us to do.
If you’ve been keeping up with me on this journey, you know my team’s had several opportunities to work in several different areas of ministry together over the past months, but still in this week we were able to retain our joy as we worked. We started around eight a.m. and kept going until noon. We had to stop every so often for water breaks, but we made sure to keep encouraging each other when we walked by, bringing our teammates lift so then, a few minutes later when you were the one needing encouragement, they could be that for you. It worked out really well for us.
It was also during this time that I realized that I still deal with a lot of lies the Enemy likes to whisper in my ear. These are usually the ones that tell me, “you’re not good enough” or “look how amazing their friendship is. And . . . where do you fit in exactly?” or “if they really saw all of you they wouldn’t accept you. Better to go do your own thing; it’s lonely, but you won’t get hurt.”
It sucks that this is half the inner monologue that seems to be set on repeat in my head. It sucks that it’s taken me seven months to figure out that these walls I still have up, they are some of the most basic walls that I erected around my heart years ago. Little things people say and do around me, id didn’t matter if they intended to hurt me or not, they just added to the bricks, the cement, the barbed wire and the smaller walls that went up to protect those essential first walls.
It taught me excruciatingly well how to protect myself, how to lie to myself and pretend I didn’t care.
And the tricky thing is, even if you can see these little whispers for the lies they are, then it seems so silly to voice them out loud. Because of course they’re wrong, of course nobody thinks that about you. Of course you’re essential and loved and welcome at any time. And yet if you don’t voice them, they stay locked in your head, swirling around and as much as you tell yourself you don’t believe them or repeat what truth is, it’s just not the same as speaking it out.
Bring light to the darkness and it cannot be dark anymore. Darkness cannot exist where there is light.
So in and amongst all of our yard work and the other things we were doing, I worked on voicing my lies.
On Sunday, we did Super Feedback, where everyone gives each member of the team a positive and constructive piece of feedback that they’ve heard from the Lord or noticed during the week. Honestly, it’s kind of a hassle to figure it all out, but it’s an incredible way to build up the Body and I always come away from it with great perspective on what I’m doing well and how I can grow with the Lord and my team.
This week I was encouraged to step even further into my identity, to not shrink back into myself with another team around us for this week and the whole squad with us for the rest of the month. I’ve worked really hard to gain this ground in showing and living out who I am, so I should walk with confidence in that growth. And so that’s what I tried to do; through encouraging in the yard work, through being willing to do whatever jobs need to be done in ministry whether I like them or not, putting myself out there and pursuing the people around me instead of waiting to be pursued. It’s hard, I will say that. No part of this has been easy, especially when my brain wants to analyze every comment made to me and find the hidden meaning, existent or not.
But I practiced taking my thoughts captive and turning them over to Christ. It’s not easy. I still have plenty of lies to work through, but it was a start and a few days later I got feedback that I’d been the most of myself, the person God created me to be that I’d ever shown before. Wow, God is good.
Anyway, that was pretty much our week in Khok Kloi.
Last night we had a worship night with our hosts, amazing women of God, each and every one of them, with the exception of the one guy on the property, a thirteen year old boy who just got back from a mission trip with the church and is on holy fire for God. You should hear that kid preach. Man.
But the time was also an opportunity to tell them what God has been teaching us this week and what our favorite memories were. Some were funny. Some were sweet. Some even brought us to tears. It’s crazy how in such a short time we were able to bring lift to their ministry and they were able to bless us in return with such caring hearts and how well they loved us.
One thing my sisters mentioned time and time again as we went around and shared was the peace that resides over their property, the amount of love and effort that went into loving God and worshiping him being felt.
I have to admit I didn’t really feel that when we arrived there. I didn’t feel much of anything at all, but especially when we arrived because I couldn’t feel much past tired. And even as the week went on, we all knew we loved the place and the people, all knew we wished we could spend more time delving into the relationships to be had there, but God has called us elsewhere and that will be good too.
It wasn’t until this morning when we were dragging all of our bags to the vehicles that would start us on the next leg of our journey that I remembered a tire swing I’d seen on the edge of the property.
I have a swing at home and it’s pretty much my getaway, a safe place for me to be alone with my thoughts. To remain mostly undisturbed as I try to come to grips with whatever the world has thrown at me most recently; good or bad. My own little sanctuary.
We still had a little time, so of course I had to swing on it, if only for a moment.
And when I did, that’s when I felt it, that’s when it clicked. That peace that everyone talked about the night before, I felt it as heavy and comforting as a blanket, like a living, breathing thing. And in that moment, I realized that’s not the only moment I’ve felt peace. Maybe for me, peace is something I find when I’m in that place of being perfectly relaxed. Where I know it’s only me and God and whatever other characters appear in my head during that time.
It’s a place where even the lies can’t touch me, not really. Because for me, those are the places where I feel God’s peace, where it calls all of me into alignment with him and I’m just me. All of me. Unreservedly. And God meets me there.
More thoughts later,
TL
