I thought for sure this month would be a breeze.
After all, I've lived in situations where I had 2 shirts, 2 pair of shorts, 2 pair of underwear, 2 bras and 1 pair of shoes for months.
How hard could it be to live with 7 articles of clothing and unlimited underclothing for 4 weeks?
In this culture?
Harder than you think.
And so surface more issues of my heart.
Over the years, as i studied simplicity from Catholic, Protestant and Neo-monastic perspectives I have thought many times about how much I would love to go simple again in my own life.
And in many, many ways Larry and I have done so.
We don't own a lot of stuff, we have gotten out of major debt.
Between the two of us we make $29,000/yr and, compared to a large percentage of the world, live like kings on what we make.
I came into this chapter like it was going to be a breeze, as I said above, thinking "oh good, though I am not ready to scale down to two brown tunics like John Michael Talbot it's going to be great to go down to very few articles of clothing again."
Really?
Well, yeah, 3 t-shirts, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, a black sweater and a pair of black tennis shoes are great.
...Until you have to stand up in front of the church and say something.
...Until have to go to that ministry meeting.
...Until you have to go to that lunch with intimidating people.
...Until you're meeting a group of strangers for the first time.
Yeah, Leigh.
Only a few articles of clothing is easy when the entire culture you reside in only owns the same amount of clothing you own.
But not so easy when there are other choices and you...what was that..."want to make a good impression?"
Ouch.
And so we come to the state of my heart.
Which is what I wanted to deal with in this whole series of fasts.
One of my goals in life (and I am not there yet, obviously) was to be most concerned with who I am.
I am truly convinced that what makes us attractive as people is not what we wear, what we own, our accents, color, etc but our Godliness.
Who we are in God is what draws people (or pushes them away).
We are a fragrance, as Scripture tells us, of life or death, depending on where people are in their own life journey.
If you have done any reading about Mother Teresa, St Francis, Shane Claiborne, these types of people, no one was drawn to them because they were good looking or had "stuff" or kept their houses clean or whatever.
No, people were (are) drawn to them because of who they were (are).
Because of how they lived their lives.
Because of their priorities.
Because holiness, Godliness, surrounded them and oozed out of them.
I am not there.
Not even close.
But I am glad to have to wear the same jeans, same t-shirt and same sweater...
...To church
...To that meeting with strangers
....To that ministry lunch
Because it's forcing me to reckon with my priorities.
Do I really want to be a fragrance of the Presence of Jesus?
If so, then my interior life is what is important.
Not whether or not I am putting on a purple t-shirt again.
May the day come when rivers of living water truly do pour forth from my belly, people can look at me and note "that she has been with Jesus," and walk away not even remembering the color of my shirt.
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