Just to give you an
idea…
Mornings usually tend to be pretty relaxed around here. They start softly because everyone is still
sleeping when I wake up, but as life rises with dawn so does all of the sounds
that accompany everyone’s movements.
It’s your typical morning on the World Race.
I’m one of those people that don’t want to be bothered in
the morning. Just, please, leave me
alone for awhile so I have the chance to wake up before you start being “chipper”. I have to have a cup of coffee and a bare
minimum of fifteen minutes to pull myself out of the ‘slumber’ state or I might
explode on you. Unfortunately for
myself, I’ve had to adapt because that kind of luxury cannot be found on the
World Race. This is why I attempt to
rise before most everyone else – it gives me the opportunity to spare them from
early morning attitude. And while I would
love to escape anything that resembles human life when I wake up, I can’t. Living with 26 other people voids each one of
us from this fantasy, this utopia that I find myself so eagerly desiring. I think I secretly pray that when I open my
eyes of a morning I won’t be surrounded by five other guys on a floor.
But they’re always there.
So I get up and journey within my slumber state in search
for that morning cup of coffee. The walk
to the kitchen’s always enjoyable because I have to walk by all of this
greenery – I believe said greenery is called “plants”. I’ve never lived in a house with an open
courtyard in the middle of it where the sun is invited in and the rain is just
as welcome too. It’s a great way to
check the weather though. Yesterday it
was raining… a lot… and I might have gotten a little wet on my way to the
kitchen.
Upon my arrival to the pot of hot water in the ‘dining room’,
my heart starts beating faster as I frantically search for the coffee cup
that’s – inevitably – never there. It
takes one nonverbal glance to the girls in the kitchen for them to know what my
soul is parched for, and without questions asked, they hand me a coffee
mug. I truly miss having real cups of coffee, but I’m learning
(slowly) to adapt (at month three) to the instant kind. And while my heart knows the difference, my
brain doesn’t that early in the morning.
So before I’m even fully functioning, I’m playing games with myself. How grand.
I try to sit and spend some time in the Word and listen to
the Lord. This typically goes over
pretty well even in the midst of my attempts to shock myself awake with caffeine. In fact, I would say that I’ve grown by leaps
and bounds with this throughout the year.
I’m actually hearing the Lord’s voice and able to discern and understand
what He’s speaking to me. It’s really
helped me walk with a newfound confidence.
So I seek this out every morning.
It does a beautiful thing to my feet.
And while I sit there with my cup of coffee trying to grasp
the profoundness of what the Lord is speaking to me, I’m captivated briefly by
the quietness of a song. It’s a song
that escapes the lips of that lady in the kitchen and soars through the air
until it reaches my ears that are straining to hear the Lord. I sit up because almost inevitably I hear God
in her morning melodies. I can never
understand a word though I recognize a lot of them as songs that they sing in
church, but there’s a joy to her worship… and sometimes I like to imagine the
Lord using her to sing the sun to rise.
Wrapped in the warmth of the movement pouring from her Spirit, I merely
sit there and enjoy the state of my slumber and the attempt that I’m making to
understand words on paper, words that somehow cannot stand on their own
compared to what she’s coupled with a melody.
It’s a moment too broad for words and so momentary that I could never do
it justice.
And this beauty is soon abolished as others wake up for the
day and start hustling and bustling around.
Some of the other Racers grab breakfast while others shower – all but a
few still imprisoned to their dreams. We
typically have a busy day of ministry ahead of us as we all begin to listen for
the Lord’s voice and seek Him out in the faces of those that we encounter on a
daily basis.
All the stupid humor of waking up aside, I almost feel
removed from time during mornings like this.
I can picture myself sitting there with the taste of coffee coupled with
my morning breath while life moves on without me. But all in the same moment, I’m resting in
the grace of God that wakes me each morning, by the grace of God that surrounds
me by men on the floor every day, and by that same grace that rings in my ears
through a simple song pouring from a cook’s lips.
It’s just another typical World Race morning…
