a picture for you-Chiang Mai Pt1

As month 5 of the Race is comes to an end, I’d love to paint you a picture of where I’ve been meeting with the Lord. My team, as well as two other fantastic female teams, are living in a Christian-run hostel called Zion. There are 17 of us total, 12 of which share one room. Instead of beds, we have 9 mattresses on the floor. On top of the mattresses, are our packs laid about here an there. Walking through our room has become an Olympic sport…you have to triple jump over the first three beds, then long jump over the next two, and finally stick the landing with a back handspring to get to my bed in the corner. We are making it work.

 

One of my biggest fears before coming on the Race was losing my freedom to have alone time. The WR operates on the buddy system so, understandably so, we aren’t allowed to be alone in public. This is honestly very difficult for me. By the time we arrived in Thailand and month 5, alone time passed Chick-fil-A on the list of things I craved the most from home. Well, the Lord has been good to His daughter….the bottom floor of Zion Hostel is Bella Goose Coffee Shop. I love it here, not only because of the bomb cinnamon rolls, but because their ministry is to hire girls who have been delivered from human trafficking. Bella Goose has provided me with a loophole in the buddy system. Because the coffee shop is attached to the hostel, I can be there BY MYSELF while everyone else sleeps upstairs. Thank you, Lord, for meeting the needs of your people, both big and small! 

 

Grab your brushes, this is where the painting begins. I wake up surrounded by people and stuff, I quickly get dressed and prepared to head downstairs. Because we live in an “attic” I carefully cross the dark room and begin my great descent down 8 flights of stairs At the bottom of the last staircase is the sliding barn door that separates the hostel from the coffee shop. As if it were water, light floods in – the light that seemed to be trapped on the other side of the door greets me and welcomes me into a new day and another set time to meet with the Lord. The staff greets me, I order my coffee and take my seat – it’s the one not far from the counter, the one close to the door that leads to the patio. It faces east, so I sit in the warmth of the sun as it finishes its rising. Hannah Beth brings my coffee (caramel macchiato of course…and if it’s Friday she also brings me a cinnamon roll), and we have a nice chat. She compliments my hair, which is doing surprisingly well for running out of special product last month, and she goes on her way. I adjust my headphones, and to the sound of pianos playing hymns, I approach the throne of grace.

 

The Lord has shown me so many things. He’s shown me how He is in every breath I take, how He uses nature to be a picture of the church, and how to be more empathic. I have been honest with Him, I have listened and I have grown in Him. He allows the sunlight to pass through the curls of my hair because He knows it gets my attention that He is near. He speaks to me through things like trees, lungs, muscles and even little sailboats because He knows they delight me. He’s very much a gentleman in that way. He’s created a space for me because He sees me. He goes ahead of me and makes a place like Bella Goose where I can stop and be vulnerable and to fall more in love with His character. While countless blessings around me often go unnoticed, the space He creates just for me is one I hope to never take for granted.

 

So there you so. Don’t say I never gave you anything because I literally just painted you a picture. It’s one of sunlight and curly hair, trees and coffee, and Goodness.