Self Discovery on an Adventure: The Bad Stuff

I don't think I've made it clear to everyone that I recently got the chance to go on an adventure in Great Britain.  My group had been planning for about a year and we thought we were pretty well prepared (You can check out the previous installments here first and here second to see how that went). Travel is great because it's full of new experiences, sights and adventures.  It can also be full of exhaustion, confusion and short tempers.  In my pursuit of an adventure to find God in my everyday I discovered some things about myself in the testing ground that the trip became that I was pretty ashamed of.  So what do you do when you discover unpleasant things about yourself when you're supposed to be having an adventure?

My hubby and I went to Great Britain back in our second year of marriage with a friend.  It was an amazing opportunity and I really enjoyed myself.  We had a great time.  Here's the thing, our travel companion thought I had the worst time ever.  Why?  I was overweight and generally unhappy.  It was my normal at the time.  I was getting used to having a chronic illness and getting used to being a wife. 

Complaint was a normal part of my language.  I have since been called out for complaining which made me aware of what I thought was "sharing" and was really the symptom of a heart problem.  That first time to Great Britain was full of great memories but it was a great lesson afterward as I got feedback from my friend.  It made me aware of the attitudes I wear.  

This latest adventure to Great Britain was like a mirror of the first time.  I watched as my travel companion struggled and a completely unexpected thing happened.  I was impatient.  I am appalled to admit it.  Even now I feel ashamed of myself.  My previous esperience should have prompted me to greater understanding and compassion.  Instead, I kept trying to make things better with more planning, adjustments to the schedule, and trying to interact less with my companions.  The truth is, how I do things isn't how my companions did things.  While this led to further frustration, it didn't have too.  Once misunderstanding took root, every word seemed to have the potential to be hurtful.  I tried to fix it by talking less which ended up coming across as passive aggressive and sulky.  I hate those words.  They are ugly words and I hate imagining myself wearing them.

People wear all kinds of weird stuff when they go on vacation.  Stuff they would never wear at home.  Plaid beanies, Hawaiian shirts, lederhosen.  It seems we also wear our dirty laundry.  The secret things we say in the privacy of our minds that we dismiss at home because we can easily brush them aside.  In our safe places, in our familiar, we indulge in them like pieces of chocolate because we can be alone.  We don't have to constantly be on our best behavior.  On a trip, or outside our comfort zones, or during times of exhaustion and pain, there is no where to hide.  Those things we think in the privacy of our mind become an internal snide commentary that makes its way onto our face and out of our mouths.  

During the course of any adventure it is always wise to be aware of tensions and to ask yourself: 

1. Is my behavior adding to or subtracting from the experience we are having?
2. What lingering dark place in your heart came out of your mouth in a moment of weakness?
3. What am I going to do about it?

For Biblical and practical reasons the first thing you need to do about it is confess it to God and then go and apologize to your companions.  Getting it resolved gives everyone the best chance to reset and get on with having a great time.  Once that is done, I find it very useful to write it down and talk to God about it in detail.  While the immediate weakness of exhaustion and stress will go away, the underlying issue that it exposed is something you want to bring to the Light.

   

Discovering unpleasant things about yourself on an adventure gives you the gift of insight.  The opportunity to bring those things before the Lord, confess them, and ask Him to weed them out of your thought closet (to borrow a turn of phrase from Jennifer Rothschild).  It's hard, and it's ugly, but I can't think of a better memento to bring back from any vacation.

I hope my travel companions will look back on this adventure and forget the tensions, spats, pain and frustrations.  I hope they will remember the adventure for the exciting and new experience it was.  Either way, I know I'm praising God for using the adventure to teach me more about Him and who He wants me to be.    

The Search for Real Friendship

Pam sat there with her book open and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes.  Her hurting heart radiated off of her like a palpable wave until finally the dam broke and she began to speak, her voice raw with suppressed emotion.  Pam's story is hard but what came pouring forth wasn't her story, it was her current need.  She wanted a friend.  No one would get deep into the places she needed a companion to share with.  No one would even commit to spending time with her.  I sat in that Bible Study with a group of wildly different women in various stages of life and overwhelmingly the conversation that followed revealed a great need.  Friendship.  I thought it was just me, this loneliness, this ache to pour my heart out.  I had trained myself over the years to resist the urge.  No one had demonstrated the desire to know me.  I can barely get people to commit to hanging out.  In Christian circles we are told that's only right because we only need God.  Only He knows our hearts.  Only He can be a proper receptacle for our struggles.  But as I sat there and listened to woman after woman agree that they couldn't gather good friends no matter how much they pursued it, I was shocked.  It wasn't just me?

Is it a product of our age?  A teaching of the church?  Are we too busy getting out from under our own struggles that we can't spend ourselves on others in times of sorrow or joy?  Is it a generational thing, that we've forgotten how to hold onto people no matter what life brings?  Are there such things as deep friendships anymore?  While God will always be our best friend, the only one who will truly and completely know us and is the only perfect receptacle for our struggles, God absolutely designed us for community.  We are meant to sharpen each other, encourage each other and love each other.  

Proverbs 18:24 English Standard Version (ESV)

24 A man of many companions may come to ruin,

    but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 is often used to remind us that God is always a better friend to us than any other but an examination of the verse reveals a more subtle truth.  There is a difference between an acquaintance and a friend.  The Proverbs are full of exhortations to surround yourself with wise people.  We are called to avoid isolation; instead, we are called to fellowship.  To hold each other accountable and encourage one another.  To love one another.

While marriage and family seem to be understood as areas of our life that are full of struggle, and therefore require effort to maintain, we have forgotten how to put effort into our friendships.  How to love through disagreement.  How to spend our time lavishly on a friend in need.  How to be more interested in being real with and for someone.  The frightening truth is that the lack of practice giving and receiving real friendship has handicapped us as we practice a friendship with a God who wants to be closer than a brother.  For Pam, she has no idea how to resolve a relationship with a God who hasn't been the friend she wants.  She can't even find an example of the body of Christ being a friends heart to her.  Like many, a disappointing attempt at friendship means walking away.  They weren't real friends to begin with, our hurting heart says.  Can you see why that proclivity might not be serving us in our friendship with God?  

It is clear that this truth has been noticed.  Blogs and sermons are trumpeting the call to hospitality.  They are encouraging us to open our doors and invite people in.  I want to add my voice to that call in a slightly different timbre.  Don't just open your doors out of Christian duty.  Open your hearts along with your doors and share yourself.  Take the time to get to know someone, don't just wave at them in the hall at church and consider them a friend.  Know their struggles and be a safe person they can talk to.  The church has taken the call to be the hands and feet of Jesus literally.  We fulfill our obligations to greet or serve communion or teach Sunday school and forget that the call to be like Jesus includes other "body parts".  Our ears, hearts and minds are also tools God uses to minister.

Be a real friend.  Reach out.  DON'T STOP!!!  

If so many of us have experienced the disappointment of failing to find real connection, that hurt is going to take some effort to overcome.  Be persistent, find your tribe.  Invite someone to join your adventure!

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