Lindsey in London: Held together.

Day 36:

I am in a foreign country. You have probably caught that by now.  

But so far, I've kept it together quite well. Well, actually that’s a lie. My Father, my ever-loving and oh so patient Savior keeps me together, while I stand by, helpless to tears and wondering if I should just keep sleeping.

I am a homebody. Tied at the hip to my family. Comfortable in coffee shops with window seats. I wrestle with a powerful fear of loneliness. I haven’t traveled the world before. I have trouble reading maps.

And here I am, feeling a peace there’s no WAY I could come up with on my own, a joy that absolutely, positively will not fade, even if the smiling thing does panic the Brits, and over and over God introduces his love in the form of what were once strangers.

Not to say I haven’t had any issues. That would be a big, fat lie. This weekend has been the hardest yet. My brother, my best bud who is hysterically funny and sometimes dances to Justin Bieber with me, graduated boot camp. Ask me how many monumental moments I've missed of my brother’s. The answer is none. Not one. My job as a sideline cheerleader began the day he started t-ball and I haven’t let it go because it’s one of my favorite jobs in the world. Not being there to see him in his uniform broke my heart over and over. Letting go of him again, this time for an indefinite amount of time, is breaking my heart, over and over.

But you know what? I’m still held together. I don’t look it. But inside, there is an incredible excitement for that kid because he is on fire with truth and his arms are wide open and will touch all he comes in contact with, and goodness HOW MUCH will he be used.

You know what else? God is overcompensating. This week, I got a message from a girl I met in passing. We got coffee and turns out she is an absolutely precious human. We’re friends. A day later, I got to see a girl who absolutely glows, one I haven’t seen in four years, and in London of all places. And she encouraged my heart until I could do nothing but be in total awe of how perfectly God knows me. Today, I went to church by myself and walked out of service with another sweet soul who came to church flying solo. We explored London with a lot of joy and a lot of good food, and her wonderful roommate even joined the adventure too.

That’s a lot of friends for a foreign country. That’s a lot of being taken care of.

And that's just the last three days.

I don’t know what’s pulling you apart, or breaking your heart, or making you feel as if you’re lost in a foreign place, but I am so burdened to tell you that you are extravagantly loved, wildly pursued, and so watched over by the one who can hold you together.

Let Him overcompensate on your behalf. I’m challenging you to watch for all the things that you can’t make happen, but they land in your lap anyway. All the beautiful miracles headed your way, see them for what they are, an intense Love that cannot be touched or changed by circumstances or your insecurities or how well you read maps.

Oh, how He loves.

That's a rainbow that showed up while I hiked the Cliffs of Dover.

Lindsey in London: Running, learning, and bathrooms.

Day 23:

London is an adventure in every way. This place totally and completely has my heart. I am learning and growing, and good grief it is so good.

However, coming to London knowing I have a slight issue of doing embarrassing things made me a little nervous to leave my bed seeing as a whole new level of faux pas come with a new culture.

Never fear, not nervous enough to actually not leave my bed. I get out of bed.  I’m simply aware there are a myriad of new possibilities for this quality to shine.

And shine it does. This is a long update about those moments.

This is how you have the most fun in museums.

Every single time, and I mean every time I see a runner coming towards me, I panic. I know how to walk on the left side. I consistently remind myself to be British, but I lose all confidence when I see a runner coming towards me. More than once, I have literally stopped someone in their tracks because they couldn’t pass. All because I couldn’t make up my mind what side to walk on. And if you've ever been to London, you know everyone, literally EVERYONE (and their dog) runs. Rain or shine, you’d think it was a queen mandate to put on your spandex and disrupt the birds and panic the Americans at the nearest park. I tried it once, put my little beanie on and everything, but I ended up sitting on one of the pretty benches longer than I ran. My transformation to be British is a work in progress. (Small steps if you will, hahahaha what a pun.)

And eye contact. Nothing scares a Brit more than eye contact with someone walking towards them. And if you smile during that eye contact it is literally the funniest thing in the whole entire world. I have gotten everything from confusion to pure fright.

One of my favorite things about this place is the incredibly charming accents. However, when it comes to meeting classmates it is practically mission impossibly to understand their names. I got to class and there were a whopping two people there early. So, I introduced myself. One of the guys said, “Hi, I’m Collar.” Knowing no one in their right mind would name their kid collar I said, “Oh, nice to meet you, Collin!” He shook his head, “No no no, it’s Collar.” Totally shocked and slightly horrified his name was literally collar, I tried to conceal my facial expressions. “Oh, Collar, right, nice to meet you!” His buddy started laughing. Finally he saved me, “It’s not collar. It’s CONNER.” That’s when I lost it because my brother’s name is Conner and out of missing him and relief the poor guy’s name wasn’t collar, I spewed out a long string of words about the name Conner. Realizing I was totally scaring my new friends, I hurried and finished up that speech and ended with, “Well then, it’s nice to meet you.” For the third time.

London is beautiful. Absolutely stunning. But the bathrooms. The bathrooms I have been in, London charm was nowhere to be found. Yesterday, I went into a bathroom (one I didn’t have to pay for, thanks Costa) and got so excited because I saw one of those cords from the ceiling that you pull to flush. Like a little kid, I pulled it, totally thrilled. In a tragic moment, I realized the cord was not a flushing thing. A horrible alarm went off. Not just in the bathroom. The whole coffee shop. A high-pitched steady beeping noise. Panic stricken, I realized the cord was a nice shade of bright red for a reason, and upon further inspection I found the words “Pull for emergency service.” So I stood there not at all sure what the protocol was for this kind of thing.  Dumbfounded, I waited for someone to bang down the door. I pulled the string again hoping to turn it off. Not so. By now I was talking out loud to myself. “Oh no, oh no, I didn’t mean to! Read, Lindsey. READ.” Then I remembered the lady in line behind me and realized she could probably hear me. And hear that I needed emergency assistance. That’s when I found the blessed answer. There was a nice little button near the door that said “Cancel Service,” and out of pure hope, I pressed that little diddy. The alarm ended and I put on my total innocence face. I opened that door to see the line had five new and slightly concerned people waiting. And about twenty judgment stares from the rest of the coffee shop followed.

Welcome to London, Lindsey.

The most beautiful.

And this is where I freaked out and figured I found Narnia. Aslan is there on the right.

Brighton. Holler.

Casual day on the Thames.

Lindsey in London: Getting here was a trip.

 Day One:

Packing didn’t go so great. I tried, and I really mean it, I tried to be a minimalist. The adventurer with one backpack. Living off the land. It didn't happen. I weighed my main bag for the first time and to my great horror realized I was 18 pounds over the limit. 18 Is a lot when you think you've packed the bare minimum.

And guess what, I got rid of 16 pounds of that. TALK ABOUT EFFORT. Every time I had to put back one of my sweaters, it was like I was giving away one of my children. Painful, just really painful. But at last, there was no stinking way I could give anything else up so we bit the bullet and checked another bag, and somehow filled that one full too. This came to a grand total of one huge suitcase, two medium suitcases, and a backpack. It wasn’t a bit of problem when two of those bags were checked. But, when I got to London and had all of those little diddies with me, it was a test of endurance and an overall nightmare. When I claimed them, I took one of my string-like belts with blue flowers all over it and tied one medium suitcase on top of the other one. Any Boy Scout would have been proud of that knot. Even still, it was shaky to say the least, and the only point that was secured was the top. So I carefully rolled those huge suitcases over to the vending machine. First, I didn’t know how to use the UK chip thing in a credit card, so that took me awhile. Finally, I turned around and I saw a guy patiently waiting. I smiled, apologized and went to clear out when the slightest touch to that dumb pack of bags sent them sprawling towards him. He didn’t speak a lick of English and just stared wide-eyed at the tired and struggling for balance American.

That’s when I tried to bring all of my luggage into a stall in the bathroom. I backed in as far as I could go, but I couldn’t shut the stinking door. So, I decided to put my luggage in first, then make a path. This is what happened there:

 

(This picture is generous and doesn’t accurately depict how tight it was, but you get the point, I didn’t fit.) That’s when a lady walked by and noticed my peril. She disdainfully told me to use the first stall. I fit in that one.

I finally met up with another student and we headed to campus. Here is where I could go into hours worth of detail of how horrible it was to carry three suitcases and a back pack through half of London. It was a bad idea, terrible, painful, the worst. But all you really need to picture is me standing on the platform of the tube, sweat running down my face, praying profusely that I wouldn’t die or lose my hard-earned possessions because I can’t get all my luggage off the platform before it goes back to its speedy pace, then just pushing off my suitcases when the doors opened so I could get it all out in time. THEN realizing that to get to our next tube stop we had to tackle three flights of stairs. One at a time, we carried our suitcases up those stairs through the hoards of London dwellers. I cried in my heart but not out loud. I’m growing here.

After the tube episode, we had to walk on London’s beautiful cobblestone streets. Every. Single. Surface bump attacked my wheels and every step or so my top suitcase would fall off. However, the silver lining came when I was turning a corner and there went my unruly children colliding into a stunningly attractive man. By now my reflexes were top notch, so I grabbed it quickly. So there we stood, me holding for dear life to the loose suitcase about to take him out, and he gallantly grabs it for me. Out of breath, I managed a thank you and let go to get my balance. He must have totally misjudged my huge biceps because the suitcase toppled right into him for the second time. He apologized in a charming accent. Me being me could only blush. He helped me set it up right and walked away right before I proposed.

So, I’m here. I made it to this absolutely stunning and beautiful and charming city and not engaged yet.

I’ll keep you posted. 

I will always love planes and window seats.

 

The tube station called me.

I think I love this place.