I sit writing this perched over the canyons of Cappadocia, wrapped in a blanket on our balcony. The rain just began its pattering across the city of stone and my flimsy hotel slippers sit beside me on the rust and mustard patterned Turkish carpet. My husband naps below after our sunrise run through the valley.

I set this stage purposefully

so you know I come honestly from the middle,

not arrival or rose-colored hindsight.

This is where I am.

There always tends to be one (ok maybe more…) instance on a trip that I find myself in a funk. I’ve been tracing the thread and have begun to unravel its winding…

I perpetually tend to want to maximize– my day, my life, my vacation (your reminder that the heart of my pieces on rest were as much for me as anyone, as all my writing hopes to be). Where I have found my maximalist mindset to run rampant is in the steep highs and lows of expectations and reality– specifically in travel. The newness of a landscape in which I know nothing of, all undiscovered terrain ripe to be explored.

It’s here the question never satisfied begins: What is the most I can do in the short time I have to get the best out of this experience? (upon naming it and writing specific words out, they are frighteningly harsh). Yet it seems a practical perspective to me as I look at traveling to places halfway around the world, spending money and the gift of precious time... So what is it here that is lacking? How could I be somewhere so beautiful and my senses still hunger for more? (and then often comes the guilty thought of, why am I not enjoying myself more when this is such a privilege?)

“Why do you want to follow someone else’s itinerary when this is our trip?”

Alas, the great question of the hour. What my wise and loving husband who never takes me too seriously (thankfully) reminded me through this inquiry is this– let’s make this ours.

There is much truth to be found in the heat of friction if we choose to look, rather than disregard it as merely ‘how it is’, our ugly sparks.

We all know that the ease in which social media has brought visibility into the lives of others has brought us both beauty and burden.

The beauty: I can find endless information on all the best to see, eat and do in Istanbul.

The burden: I can find endless information on all the best to see, eat and do in Istanbul.

Take this beauty/burden and apply it to any subject. The reality I found subtle yet glaring in its clarity was that how I approach travel is how I typically approach all of life– in its own pressure-cooked way. I look for how I’m supposed to live and be amongst the screenshots around me instead of remaining attune to the rich image within me.

The voice of truth.

Both whisper and fire.

Adonai.

We set expectations through what we chose to look at, whether realizing it or not. Yet my favorite moments of the trip have been the unexpected ones: befriending and praying with the grad student Paula at church, holding hands with my husband on our walks to-and-from while humming made up tunes, bathing on the ancient marble of the hammam, and accidentally taking the long way at the local run club only to find a language barrier the key to making new friends.

No itinerary could have told me this.

Others do the best they can from where they are, but no one is here, me, being.

We each speak from our own experience, or that which has been passed from hand to hand (or reel to reel…). I don’t think getting rid of all suggestions is the way to go (sharing can help us discover beauty we hadn’t realized before), but I think we must consciously choose to first have eyes to see a bigger picture than just the plentitude of zoomed-in shots of others.

A wake-up call to the path of our life.

A let’s make this ours acumen.

An expectation set on what God could do with our specific, gifted day.

Those who sow in the flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction. Those who sow in the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Galations 6:8

Although from the outside I’ve often been labeled as peaceful or laid-back, this quality is a learned one, in more ways than one. From an early age, I learned that easygoing equaled likeable. So I adapted.

Here came my masquerade of peace only later seen in hindsight as suppression. A constant sweeping under the rug to please others. The true face of peace discovered only upon taking off this mask to lay at the feet of another…

And by His grace, I’m being transformed.

Peace is a fruit— not a seed, stem or branch. It becomes in us through abiding. It grows through strong roots– in truth and a surrender to what the One who knows us deeply may have for us if we take the time to listen and obey.

To open all up to be touched by the powerful hands of the Creator of it all– it is on this ground alone I am able to surrender my anxious thoughts and find real peace in each step. (Note: I mean this quite literally lately… I have been practicing naming my restless thoughts and physically laying them at Jesus’s feet)

A great plan ready yet an attitude of humble eagerness to partner with God and those beside us to make it ours His.

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

Past trips I was truly someone else– maybe not obvious to others, yet to myself, I hardly recognize her. Motives of being perceived or recreating an exact replica of a moment I only saw a glittering photo of…

There is more authentic joy now. This is what truth brings– a lens.

I want to carry communion everywhere.

I want to create our own moments, unique to where Abba calls us, even here in Cappadocia.

Moments of inspiration…
Moments of rest…
Moments of conversation…

What beauty is waiting to be revealed?
What attitude will I carry to see it?
What new words will I find here amongst the ancient rocks?

It is here that the gap of expectation vs reality can begin to be redefined as we learn to have eyes for Him in our everyday lives and have faith that He will show up.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24

The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. Psalm 37:23-24

Here’s a glimpse more of our trip… meant to be viewed like a scrapbook now that you’ve heard some of the story.

with love and holy wonder,

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