They made me shave my eyebrows. Well, not all of them. Allow me to explain: Way back at training camp my team mate, Luke, was sporting a cut in his left eyebrow. After asking him about it, I learned that earlier this year he had go to the Dominican Republic on a mission trip. A couple days in he decided it was time for a haircut, and what better time than there, in the Dominican? So he found himself a barber shop, walked in and pointed to his hair while making the international symbol for “cut” with his index and middle fingers.
A lot of interesting things happened at that barber shop, culminating with the barber taking a razor to Luke’s left eyebrow and shaving off a thin, slanted line. Apparently shaving a line into your eyebrow is a fairly common choice in the Dominican and, truth be told it looked pretty cool. Fast forward to three days ago. It’s late on a Friday night. We have no internet, no phones, and are required to stay in the building for the night. What we do have is 10 guys, an electric razor and the memory of Luke’s cut eyebrow.
What followed was thirty minutes of a room filled with the sounds of team bonding. The buzz of an electric razor, laughter as we saw one another’s unsuccessful attempts at notching their eyebrows, and an “Oh Crap” from anyone who dared to look in the mirror. There was tragedy (Brendan accidentally shaved off half of his eyebrow) and triumph (as he discovered the mistake could be hidden beneath the frame of his glasses) and our team grew closer through it all.
That night we all sat down for weekly feedback, a time set aside to share what we have seen in each other over the past week. It is a time of reflection, encouragement, and if necessary, a place to call one another higher. To begin, one person would volunteer to receive feedback and the rest of the team would go around the circle, presenting the feedback they had for that person.
My turn to volunteer inevitably rolled around and I found myself growing excited. “What good things did my team see in me this week? I wonder if there are any ways I can improve. I can’t wait to dig into the scripture they give me…” And so it began, each team member reflecting on funny memories from ministry the past week, sharing scripture and encouraging me to continue pursuing Christ.
My third team mate finishes talking and everyone looks expectantly to the fourth. He pauses, opening his mouth as if to say something and then slowly closing it again. Eventually he begins, “Hey, Davis. I know you love this team and want to create safe spaces, but if I’m completely honest I don’t feel safe around you. Over the past week you have often been quick to tell others where they are wrong and showcase what you know. Please take this to the Lord and see what he has for you in this.”
I distinctly remember sitting there in shock, a notch of my identity shaved off in front of the group. My ears rang from a bast I couldn’t process. I had always prided myself on my ability to create safe spaces, and cherished the deep relationships they cultivated. Instead I sat dazed, informed I had failed to gain even basic trust from one of the men I’d be living with over the coming months.
Frantically I reflected on the past week with growing fear and frustration, thinking over interactions with team members from a new perspective. No matter how I attempted to frame it, the feedback rang true, sending a fresh wave of shame and doubt shivering down my spine. It was late when my panicked thoughts succumbed to sleep as I passed out in the far corner of our shared room.
The next morning I was awoken by the light of a sunrise beaming through a nearby window and landing on my slowly stirring body. Slowly I gained conciseness, excited for another day of ministry when suddenly the memories of last night flooded back in, dropping my heart back down to somewhere far below my chest.
Still, I managed to roll out of bed and clumsily made it to my usual morning spot; A red plastic chair which sat on the porch to our room, overlooking the rising sun. I had spent every morning on that red chair since our arrival, drawing closer to God as I sat in his presence and allowed myself to simply rest in His love. This morning, however, was different. This morning I came angry.
I sat down in that red chair and looked with spite at the sky lighting up before me. I closed my eyes and began internally shouting at God. I shouted to him my anger, the anger I held against myself for failing to live up to the mature, wise young man I so often put my identity in. My shout turned quieter as I talked about my fear, fear that I had alienated my team, that my actions would forever bar me from intimacy with my team. Last came the shame, barely a whisper as I placed it before God. Maybe I am untrustworthy, arrogant, hurtful… maybe, behind my mask of wisdom and kindness, that’s all I’ve ever been.
I was reading through John at the time, and happened to have my bible open to the story of Jesus with the woman at the well. I read slowly through Jesus’ loving interaction with a woman society deemed irredeemable. Then he said to her, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving the eternal life.”
But it was the samaritan woman’s words that God used to speak to me that morning as I read her say, “Please, sir, give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.” That morning I cried out the same thing; I’m so weary of going to my pride to get filled. Every time I find my worth through comparing myself with others it leaves me more empty than before. Please give me this living water so I don’t have to keep coming back to this well I have grown to hate. Let me come in worship to the well of your love. Let me sit at your feet as your presence washes over me and you tell me over and over who you say I am: A loved son who was bought at incredible price so that I may be filled with living water.
Now I wake up, I sit in my red chair overlooking the sunrise, and simply sit as he tells me who I am. The notch my pride had carved into my identity is slowly healing as I continue to encounter his living water. As for my actual eyebrow… give it a month or two…
