On Bracing Myself

Kind Reader, (I promise I'll keep 95% of my writing over the next months original, but Jen Hatmaker-isms are bound to creep in. I can't help it. She had me at hello. Okay, at the introduction of "7." Yes, I am back on that.  And yes, it is what brings me here.) 

In irony to lay the smackdown on all ironies, Emily came home with a Mazda Protege load full of groceries the night before I am to start a fast. 

She classed up our fridge with Boursin Gourmet Spreadable Cheese in time for me to burn out on 30 days of dry chicken and 6 other foods my taste buds will almost certainly be immune to in one months time. 

I'm typing now over an expensive Last Supper, which consists of the last of the stale Lucky Charms and the last confetti cupcake PopTart Emily just pleaded I "hurry up and eat, for the love of God." 

I also have a cup of coffee because Dad sent me home with a brand spankin' new box of Starbucks Veranda blend for sipping on my front porch while the leaves fall (because he loves me), but 23 cups will have to wait for November. If I knew how to whip up a funnel cake for this occasion I would because when I breathe in Autumn I *almost* choke on excess powdered sugar, that's how closely I associate this season with carnival food.

Ah, excess. 

That's where this is going. 

"Jesus, may there be less of me and my junk and more of You and Your Kingdom." (I may already be over my 5% Jen Hatmaker quota for this post, but it's not like I'm trying to copyright this jumbled piece of gross run on sentences). 

If fasting comes across to you as self-righteous or self-absorbed, I do apologize. 

But here's the truth: I am self-righteous and self-absorbed. 

I don't mean it. 

That's the point of a fast. Breaking things up, creating space to assess the damage that is an unmeant life. To see the recklessness of days spent accidentally. To quit acting like a victim of a broken world and instead engage the privilege of an inheritance that equips me to love and live like I mean it. Like God is Who He says He Is. 

What do you mean, Sadie? If not entitlement and greed and ingratitude and pride, what do you mean?

I stammer through answers to this question on the hours-long drive up and down the mountain with God-sent Megan in a way that makes even her (the one who puts up with definitions and interpretive journal readings and Chicken Enchilada Surprise) tilt her head and admit "guurrr, you craaaazy." I almost learn my lesson on said drives (after which I go listen to Christa Wells' "Frame the Clouds" and thank the good Lord for friends who listen as your words fall short of framing the clouds, no matter how sure you try to sound) but then *kind of* try again on the phone with John, all my stammering eventually culminating in an inspiring, warmly assuring "okaaaay..." from his end of the line. 

He gets me, people. 

But really, it's time for an intervention. 

The best intervention for an Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiver like me? Writing. 

"They may be awkward and uncomfortable with expressing themselves verbally, but have a wonderful ability to define and express what they're feeling on paper."

John and Megan can surely testify to the awkward and uncomfortable verbal skills, and if you were thinking those might be operable adjectives in describing this post (and my written word in general), they might respond, "Gentle reader, you don't even know the half of it." (Sometimes I project Jen Hatmaker-isms on my real life friends...)

So while "wonderful ability" to express myself in writing might be a *tiny* bit pushin' it, I'm gonna take a stab at it and ask that you brace yoself for fasting word-vomit as I brace myself for regularly pausing to consider what I do mean with my days. 

I wouldn't be doing Definition Phase justice without defining something up in this post, so I offer you this surprisingly spot on jewel from the urban dictionary:

brace yourself-- Prepare yourself mentally or emotionally for hearing something unpleasant, out of place or inappropriate.

I've grown up in the Bible Belt, which may have you (and me) fooled into believing that gospel living will always feel practical, pleasant, proper and appropriate. Yet the more I ask God to make his Word real to me, the more I'm bracing myself because Bible Belt or no Bible Belt, what the gospel asks of Christians is unpleasant, tends to make me feel out of place and-- to be honest-- there are days it feels inappropriate to take things on faith given the reality of, well, real life. 

Fasting is a break in the pace of said real life for making a conscious choice to trust God with what feels foreign. 

To think on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. (If you even knew the self control involved in not defining out each of those words individually... well, then you'd understand how hungry I am for each of these things.)  (--Philippians 4)

To set my heart on things above, not on earthly things (... "for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.") 

To rid myself of "all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language." 

To clothe myself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (--Colossians 3)

So--  for the love of God-- I'm eating the last of the cupcake poptarts and embarking on "an experimental mutiny against excess." 

Because loving God means believing God. And believing God means trusting his... enough-ness.

I don't even have a definition for that one. And I don't even care. 

Already the progress.