I am reading the verses that lifted my heart seven years ago when this whole online journaling thing began, when I was in a far away country with a team of my peers and we were battling ourselves, our culture, our homesickness.  I read these verses and I soared inside.  They were affirmation.  Validation.  Even better: purpose.  And we all know every good American loves some purpose.

I am reading them now in another context.  I have been back a while.  I have settled into life and I am comfortable more often than I am uncomfortable.  But I am reading these Isaiah words and I am remembering the sweetness found in uncomfortable spaces.  I am remembering the burning love He has for the marginalized and I am looking at my life from these words.

It's falling short.

We're beginning a study that fasts in seven areas for seven months and I am answering hard questions already.  I am cringing at the ugliness of my answers.  I am wondering how much I will grow because right now I am not sure I want my tidy life to be wrecked by generosity and hospitality.  I am picturing my white walls, my cute bar cart, my perfectly arranged pillows on my spotless couches.

And I recognize I have fed myself some pretty lies.  I put my time in each week.  I invest.  I do the youth group thing and the teaching for nothing thing and the Bible studies and mentoring and worship team breakfast-making.  And then I drive up to my home and I hang my coat next to ten other coats, I open a fridge that is always full, I make myself fancy coffees and I sit in front of my big TV or I grab a book off a shelf overflowing with books and snuggle up with a blanket pulled from a basket overflowing with blankets.  I've been brainstorming a larger closet because there just isn't enough room for my clothes.  Right now my list of things to do includes these: buy a new water bottle, plan my 30th celebration, and find a recipe for turkey drumsticks.  My life is good in an embarrassing way.

I realize now He started working on me long before I decided to work on myself.  Of course He did.  He moved me to a school full of the uneducated poor.  He shifted me into a new youth group, a new demographic.  He threw a house at us with space enough to be very hospitable.  And he opened my time.  I have more time now than I am comfortable with.  Good.

I felt the discomfort creep in this summer.  Remember?  I combated it with licorice and Call The Midwife, but we all know that only ended in a stomach ache (delicious gluten) and an even larger fear of the birthing process.  Then I began the slow self-destruct I am prone to.  And now I am here: on the edge of big self denial.  Here with the new students and their stories that are hard to swallow. We lost our house Mrs. C.  I might not be here next month because we don't have anywhere to stay and I have to put everything into boxes.  Here with the time and the resources to share.  Here, hungry for the way my heart moves closer to His when I'm stripped down, when He is all that is left of me.

This month we are giving away seven things a day.  And I am strangely excited. Closet problem solved!  I am adding to my list of things to do: research charities for abused women, contact 147 million orphans, go through my prettiest dresses.  I am praying over the people who do not have enough to wear in this weather, I am convicted by the piles of clothes on my floor, in the bathroom, in the laundry.  And I am praying hard: asking Him to close the gap I've built between comfort and discomfort.  Asking Him for grace because this is bound to get selfish, I am bound to throw a few fits,  Tell myself a few more pretty lies.  Lord help us to live like we're saved.

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own
flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go
before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard."

Isaiah 58:6-8

So.  Busted.