When I returned to live in Montserrat in 2009, I noticed something curious.
Every driver parked their vehicle facing outwards.
For weeks, I wondered why, until I finally asked.
The answer was simple. Since the start of the volcanic crisis in 1995, you never knew when you would need to make a quick getaway and parking with your vehicle facing out, meant there was no wasted time to reverse and escape.
That habit stayed long after the eruptions stopped. Even though the volcano has been quiet for more than 15 years, the behaviour remains. It became part of who we are; a quiet readiness to run.
You can tell the people who never lived through an eruption and didn’t worry about a pending explosion.
And it made me think.
How many of us live the same way?
Always ready to move on.
Expecting things to fall apart.
Living with our hearts packed away.
In Live Fearless: A Christian Entrepreneur’s Guide to Life and Business, I talk about living with your bags packed. Always ready for a quick getaway.
Expecting things to fail.
Believing relationships won’t last.
Operating your business like it’s a temporary stop gap until something better comes along.
You grow up hearing people tell you to “leave room for disappointment.”
“Don’t love anyone more than they love you.”
You are always living expecting others to disappoint you, expecting the worse, ready to leave before you are left.
You can go through life living with your bags always packed.
I know this too well.
My family moved every few years as my father was transferred from church to church across the Caribbean. Later, my marriage meant packing up almost every nine months.
So when I finally settled in Montserrat after my divorce, staying still felt unnatural. After two years, I was ready to leave again. But I wanted my children to have the stability I didn’t discover until my teens when my dad put his foot down and said he wasn’t going to move until his children finished high school and he had something to show for his life beyond fixing broken churches.
It took seven years to find the house which would become our home for the next 10 years.
The first place I felt I could begin to unpack my bags.
Hang paintings on the wall, buy furniture I really liked rather than just live with what was provided.
It wasn’t always easy. Life kept throwing things at us that made me want to pick up leave but I had to stay firm. That stability is what builds confidence in your children and provides peace in life’s storms.
When the children of Israel were taken into exile, God spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah. “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters…Increase in number; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city…because if it prospers, you too will prosper” – Jeremiah 29:5-7 (NIV).
In other words, you’re going to be here a while. So stop waiting for things to fall apart. Live fully, right where you are.
Isn’t it time you unpack and live a full life?
What would that look like for you?
Maybe for you that means painting your home.
Or leaning into the relationship that you have been holding back from.
Or focusing on business, rather than juggling five jobs out of fear it won’t last.
God doesn’t want you living braced for disaster. He wants you expecting good.
Later or in that same passage in Jeremiah, we find the beloved scripture that says: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” – Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV).
The volcano is quiet now. Maybe it’s time for your heart to be, too.
Unpack.
Settle in.
Live fully.
If this message resonated with you, explore deeper in my book Live Fearless: A Christian Entrepreneur’s Guide to Life and Business – a faith-driven roadmap to breaking fear-based cycles and building a life rooted in peace, purpose, and growth.
Take the Fearless Archetype Quiz to discover what’s holding you back and start unpacking your full potential today.
