Broken Hearted?

Lord? What are you doing here?

I seem to be asking Him that question a lot lately. In those quiet moments when no one is around and I am being confronted with my apathy and same-ness, when I am thinking to myself that sometimes I feel literally like I have fallen asleep at the wheel or I am on some kind of mind altering drug that makes me very dull in the senses.

Last week my friend Becky texted me and told me I HAD to order this book she was reading and "do" it with her...the next day it was the same thing...you gotta read this book and do it with me...So when I was in Eugene last week visiting my mom I decided to stop in at Barnes and Noble and see if they had it (don't they have everything?) I seriously wasn't sure they would have it but yes, they sure did...Its called 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. Now, what is kind of interesting about this process, well, a bunch of things are but to start with one thing was that I had all kinds of notions about what this book was about and guess what? None of them were true. What a mind blower! Becky told me that but I am not sure I really could have captured what she was telling me without reading it myself.

Let me back up just a little for the other points I want to make.  Our family has been having our world shaken in the past 9 months or so.  I am not going to go into all the whys and wherefores but my conclusion is this, we were in a stupor, going from American Dream thing to American Dream thing, thinking that we were entitled to live out our dreams and see the dreams of our children realized. I never really gave it much thought that I could just as easily never see any of those stereotypical dreams come to pass, they just would, after all, I was born in America right?  I am realizing the much bigger picture of Gods Kingdom and that I was never ever meant to hold on to things/possessions. I was never meant to live a passive and easy life with all the comforts I could muster in a day (don't get me wrong, I am not saying those things are wrong) but was meant to be uncomfortable if my brother or sister, neighbor or friend or stranger down the street wasn't comfortable. I am realizing that the world that I thought existed all these years was just a figment of my imagination and truly, TRULY NOT the world in which the Lord wanted me to live in.  The real world is where HE is!! That said, we have hands and feet that are intended to do the work of the gospel, to put our hands to the plow and work.  Enter this book..... You have to read it or a synopsis of it to understand but the second Becky mentioned it to me, I thought, yeah, I need to read that thing...Now that I am reading it (yes, I am gobbling it up) I am saying, yes, I am IN!!!!!  And yes...I am SCARED!!!!

I'm not scared of giving up things, clothes, food, possessions, spending, media, waste, stress...Well, maybe a little bit afraid of wearing only 7 things for a month (like I said, you have to read the book or go to Jen Hatmaker's blog) but more afraid of what the Lord will be stripping away!  I know that there is excess in my spirit, excess in my heart and excess in what I carry around with me on a daily basis...We are doing a song at church now called Savior of the Broken Heart and it is really beginning to settle in my heart, stir up my spirit and open my eyes to see that I have not got a clue about loving my neighbor as myself!  I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to decrease so He can increase. I don't want to be so wrapped up in myself that I forget to love, forget to SEE, forget to move, to act and to do what He has called me to do.

I love the words to this song!!! I am so impacted by them, so lead by them and as I read this book, I am so understanding them in a way I never thought I would, EVER!!!!  

Thank you Becky! I literally can't wait to get started!!!