My Journey: From the Junkyard

My spiritual journey has been like a walk in the junkyard.

I love lines, grace is hard for me to get. I feel more comfortable in perimeters, which is ironic since life doesn't sit within lines. This summer, I stepped out of my box and did a forty day water fast.

I cried the night before I began. I was terrified of failing, being in pain and having to explain it to my family. Fasting is not me. Each day I survived the fast, became a trust-building moment. I had more time for other things. Time to sit and talk. Time to think. Time to work through issues I avoid.

I faced what I don't normally want to face, and cried, a lot. My soul detoxed along with my body. I felt connected to the Bible's forty-day fast in the desert. Not saying I had the same experience (he was in melting desert heat, I was in air-conditioning with plenty of water) but something about it came alive for me ~ a touch of suffering, albeit self-imposed. My auto-drive attitude of entitlement began to fade into grateful repentance.

The fast didn't feel like a big spiritual enlightenment. It felt like a walk through a junkyard where you're just focusing on this step to make it out, because if you look away for one minute you may end up sliced open by broken glass or fall into a hole where no one will find you. But I also see love.

And it's the love; overpowering, forgiving, meet-you-where-you're-at, kind of love pulling me back over and over. Many of my junkyard days felt more carried than walked. And that's the way love is. It goes with you to the middle of your stench-filled junkyard and carries you out.

Hmm, I think grace may be inching it's way into my perimeters.