Bubble Tea Epiphany – Soaking In The Different

A few weeks ago I got out for a much needed couple hours by myself in the evening. I was planning on hitting up Starbucks, where I could sit and think and journal in a familiar and comfortable setting. However, as I started driving, it was as if my car had a mind of its own. I knew where it was taking me, I just wasn’t sure if I was okay with it. After all, I’m not spontaneous or impulsive. I like my routines. I’m okay with sameness.

On a certain road, I had seen a sign for Bubble Tea several times. I’ve heard a lot of buzz on bubble tea and in the back of my mind have wanted to try it.

That’s where I was headed in my car.

To try bubble tea.

All by myself.

In a place I had never been.

I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest. Really? Am I really going to do this?

You may laugh that such a small thing could be such an adventure for me, but when you’re used to living a certain way, it can be hard to break out of that mold.

I entered the restaurant, was greeted warmly and told my greeter that I would be dining in, but didn’t want supper just a bubble tea. I told my waitress I had never had bubble tea and asked for a recommendation, which she kindly offered. Jasmine Green Bubble Tea it is then. I sat, drank and wrote in my journal. But mostly I just soaked in the “different.” Did I mention all the conversation around me was in a language I couldn’t understand?

The jasmine flavor of my tea was strong. It wasn’t my favorite, but that’s not what this post is about.

Here’s something I wrote that night:

“Maybe what I am desiring is not the rhythm and comfort of routine, but the pursuit  and education and adventure of the new. Maybe I want to taste it all – all of God’s amazing creation – on a global scale. Maybe I’ve been trying to do the same things when what I want is new and different. I get excited about this. The new. The uncomfortable. To see new, taste new, speak new. To explore with my family.

“If I feel God is small and boring then maybe I need to visit the vast ‘outside the box’ where He really lives. Maybe I need to go there.

“I’m scared of the IMPERFECT. If I try something new it will be scary, different. I might flub it up, make a fool of myself. But right now each day does not feel fresh and new because I live it the same. Nothing is engaging. Nothing new. No sense of adventure. This has to stop. I can change this merry-g0-round I am on.

“The predictable is safe. It is empty. God is not predictable. He is not safe, but He is good. I’m coming after you God, oh Romancer. I am coming after you. I am in love with you and feel you wooing me. The epiphany I’ve been searching for has hit me with a new drink in a new place.”

At this point I looked out the window of the restaurant and could see just the very corner of a banner blowing in the wind. All I could see on it was the word FREE.

“Thank you Jesus,” I wrote, “I’m coming your way.”

I’d like to tell you that my life has been amazing during the weeks that followed my bubble tea epiphany. I think I expected it to be.

It hasn’t.

I’ve tried some new things that have failed miserably, and I’ve been in a wrestle between listening to what I think I’m hearing from God and staying safe in the obedience of the rules of my religion.

I have not “arrived.”

But I feel like I am on to something, so I wanted to share it. I’m wading through the mess that comes with attempting to “soak in the different” and I’m not about to give it up just because it’s hard. I want to follow after God, and I know He’s bigger than me and my white, American, Christian, middle-class perspective. I’ve got to find Him, in all His Glory. Care to come along?