I am tired. I feel the need to confess this. Partly because I want to excuse the fact that I went a day without posting, clearly proving that I could not do a 30 Day Writing Challenge (However, I don't remember there being anything in the bylaws about the days being consecutive, so I feel a sense of liberation based on that.). But mostly I tell you that because it is true. I'm tired.

This day last year I was about to embark on a forty day fast from everything but fruits and vegetables. I was about to stick it to The Man and see if He'd pull through for me by Easter and the fast's end. I remembered tonight when I read my sidekick's blog that when everyone else was rejoicing and shouting "He is risen indeed!" I was weeping, row ten, left side. I felt completely and utterly left. Forgotten. Cast aside. Like Judas, I denied Him and I felt denied.

It amazes me now to read of things that a year ago were just beginning to shape my new foundation. The concept of digging down deep like the wise man did, instead of just building a house on the hardest rock I could find around me (which is what I did and what I fear so many of us do), began to wreck at the deepest parts of me, the secreted fears and the doubts I never voiced. So much of 2010 was chiseling, painful, painful chiseling. So much felt like standing in front of a mirror and trusting the work to be done without my help, or in many ways, even my participation. I felt crafted and, for the first time in my life, I felt completely incapable of helping that crafting along.

I was done.

2011 has already been a year, just two months in, of great faith for me. For what, you ask? I can't even tell you. I don't have my finger on the pulse of needs or wants anymore, I whisper names in quiet breath, circumstances as they come to mind, but really, I don't know what this storehouse of faith is saved for. This is what I do know: tonight, I'm tired.

I came home on my lunchbreak today, ate steamed broccoli and sat on my back porch feeling the tired set in. It could be allergies or hormones, that's the truth. But sometimes I wonder if it's not the Lord saying, "Hey, you're starting to help me along again and I don't want you to." Because that's also the truth.

I am working full-time, trying to blog something intelligent everyday, involved in small groups and bible studies, an intensive discipleship class and building community here. I am ALL here and sometimes I get that confused with helping God help me.

So tonight, tonight I'm tired. It's a good reminder, though. These days I take every opportunity to remember the gospel and my need, so now is as good a time as ever.

God, the Master, The Holy of Israel, has this solemn counsel:
"Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and
stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.
Your strength will come from settling down
in complete dependence on me..."
Isaiah 30:15

day eleven of 30 day challenge put down by one Jason Alan Churchill Thorburne Morris.