By: Kellen

I have found myself recently wondering what I am doing here. On a daily basis I see injustice around me, holding signs, asking for change and lined up outside the rescue mission. It is a hard neigborhood to live in. Hard, because I sometimes don't want to walk alone outside at night? Yes. Hard, because I rarely know how to respond to the need around me? Yes. Hard, becasue some nights the sirons are many? Yes. Yet, if I sit and am honest of why it is difficult for me it seems even more clear and even more unbearable...I could be in a line somewhere, holding a sign, begging for money. Somewhere along the way of life someone handed me a "hand up." Grace seemed to find me in the right moments, in the right time and places. Life moves forward and there are days when I remember to be grace to those on the street, and those in my home. If I am honest, often I forget. I get wrapped up in my world and needs that I don't see how my excess can meet a need today. From the clothes in my closet to the cans of food we will probably not touch this year. Excess seems to always be in my life. I long to live a simple life, one free to give. My hunch is that such a life is learned through practice. Why is it that I find it hard to do? Materialism in a capitalist society, greed, selffishness...Lord Jesus root out whatever it may be!