Today I meandered.
I woke up early and laid in bed.
Later, lazily later, I made a decision to wander until ministry time.
I meandered down the beach. Praying and talking. I found a “fruit lady.” One of the magical women who walk the beach carrying scales tipping with the yummiest fruit.
I’ve fallen in love with a fruit lady or two.
So this morning, I stop and chat. I grab a couple of mangoes. I eat one and savor it as a wander some more. Feet washed by the Gulf of Thailand. Water so warm your skin seamlessly adjusts to the lapping and splashing and becomes an extension of your walking. I drop a mango or two in the sand, wash it in the gulf and resume eating.
No need to worry.
I settle into the sounds around me. Birds and people and water and my thoughts.
No need for music.
This is island life.
So quiet you can actually hear. Really hear. Everything.
Life so slow you wander into peace.
I wish I could say I started here though.
I didn’t.
Two weeks ago I arrived on Phu Quoc tired and wound up. I was so hopped up on Vietnamese coffee, my thoughts ran 50 mph in spite of my eyelids running 1 mph, slowing to a stop.
I mean, The Race is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. And Jesus is so here and with me and in every country I step foot in. Never have I felt Him so much, so close. But I suppose that’s me, rather than Him. Another blog for another time.
In any case, The Race is unbelievably life changing.
But it’s also unbelievably fast.
And unbelievably loud.
And unbelievably driven. With so many “have tos” and “don’t do thats.”
If I let it, if I succumb to the reactivity of living a wild traveling life where each day can be completely different, my soul shrinks a little.
I start to feel the weight and burden of exhaustion. Exhaustion so wide it hurts. My soul aches with exhaustion.
Not physical exhaustion.
Which is weird, actually.
We’re up early every day and in bed late a lot of days. We’re living a go go go life and sleeping on crazy floors in the most peculiar of places with new noises and all that amidst busses and planes and hectic schedules. On top of that, I’m apparently 31 and not getting younger.
I hear.
But no, not physical exhaustion. Emotional and spiritual exhaustion.
You know it when most days that would feel like a multi-colored life full of fuchsias and aquamarines start to feel grey. A day that last month would’ve felt deep and wide, feels flat.
And maybe it should be said here, that maybe it’s not all the Race. After all, I’m not the typical Racer. I’m not super adventurous. Or really impulsive. I’m not too wild. I’m pretty thought out and analytical. Mostly intentional.
I mean for a living, I sit on a couch.
I’m a risk taker, sure. But I take risks with people. I take risks in vulnerability and love. Not really on cliffs or out of planes.
So maybe it’s important here to note that I’m an intentional square peg trying to fit into a wild round hole.
In any case, Jesus chose this square peg for this round hole.
So when I arrived on Phu Quoc Island, this square peg found herself standing on a beautiful beach, with lots of Vietnamese coffee and running on fumes.
And then Jesus said, “Be still” to The Lumes. But didn’t He know that NO part of me can sit still on Vietnamese coffee?
So, The Lumes (Me) figured out how to stay and in staying found stillness. We also found beautiful places and ministries for future racers to stay at. We found hilarious kids’ smiles and teeny villages with Jesus exploding at the seams. We found hidden churches and backpackers who are all sorts of thirsty for His name.
But me, whew, I found Him.
Again.
And again.
And again, again.
On the beach, in my exhaustion, I found frustration first.
Before I found Him.
Maybe amidst finding Him.
I surrendered to island life, living the slow wandering pace.
And it was hard.
Slowing down meant that I slowed enough to feel some things that I hadn’t been feeling.
Slowing down, unraveling before Him, took time and space and courage.
It would be easier to keep doing.
To keep up the to-do lists.
To run early in the morning, keeping pace, rather than wandering the beach with Him.
To keep serving my team, finding their needs and serving them and ignoring my needs.
To keep exploring villages, searching endlessly for contacts for future Racers and not taking enough time to rest with Him.
Sometimes serving becomes another way to run.
Another way to avoid.
Sometimes we need to settle our Martha heart down and sit our Mary butt at Jesus’ feet.
Even on the World Race.
Even when you’ve dedicated a year of your life to serving others.
Even here. Especially here.
Jesus wants us to slow enough to see Him. See ourselves. And see Him in us.
To sit before Him like Mary did. And my goodness unravel a bit.
Unravel like we never have before.
Because why not here?
Why not now?
Let me explain a bit what that might look like. For me, the process of laying myself out, fully authentic, fully present, real before Him and myself and the people I love, is the process of unraveling.
It’s like a ball of yarn, my brain, my emotional thought life. If you ask me how I am, say Day 1, on the island, all on the coffee, you will only get the string from the yarn ball that exist on the outside.
But maybe we sit down.
You ask me some pointed questions.
You get interested and really listen.
Then maybe you wait and give some silence.
You’re going to get the unravel. The underneath, hidden string on the yarn ball. The fresh stuff. It’s not worn with receipts and bobby pins from my bag sticking to it. You’ll get the new thoughts. The scary ones. The hidden and vulnerable ones.
This is unraveling.
And the Father loves when we unravel before Him.
But sometimes we live a life so full of busy.
So full of good hearts and beautiful friends and family, and even lovely Christmastime activities, that we forget to live a life like this.
One that leaves space for us to unravel and expand and take up room. My goodness think of David, what space that man took up with his thoughts and unraveling. And think of Ruth, intentionally taking up space in Boaz’s house.
When we unravel, we find more of Jesus and our story with Him.
At least that’s what’s happened on the island.
I’ve unraveled all over.
The Lumes have unraveled.
It has looked like each of us finding light and life and desires we had forgotten about in all the “have tos” of the Race.
It’s looked a lot like joy.
And peace.
And hearts full and pouring out Jesus.
Come join us in the quiet, won’t you?
We’ll unravel together.
Here we go.
Let’s all be brave.
