I only ate half the doughnut

I looked at it and knew I should have gone with the banana. I had just finished running 5k, and my stomach wasn't happy that I chose the doughnut. Halfway through eating it, I remembered I had the option to throw it away. I didn't have to eat the doughnut. So I tossed it. A perfectly good doughnut.

Where am I? At a really great place in life. Newly married to an amazing man who has enhanced my life in ways I didn't know were lacking. I remember being happy single, living a good life--but I don't remember that happiness being like it is now. It has changed--amplified--in some way. I am with my family, in a great community, doing exactly the kind of work I want to do. I am challenged and growing and learning. And it is fall.

Fall has always been my least favorite season: Summer, Winter, Spring, Fall. Fall is when everything gets cold and dies. But I also haven't been in the country for many falls the last ten years. I am finding I really like fall (considering it officially starts tomorrow, I might take that back later). The fall sunshine holds something peaceful. Crunching leaves gives me a joy. And the gradual cold is do-able. I like sweaters. Maybe the illustration I should use for fall is moving into a rest than into death.

So it is on a perfect, crisp, fall morning that I hold my doughnut and see so much more than an unhealthy snack. I see myself wasting food. That person. Not that a better solution would have been to stuff my face with the rest of the doughnut, or to get mad that they had free doughnuts going to waste in the first place. The answer wasn't even to feel guilty for not choosing the banana. So what was the answer?

My head will forever swell with faces of the children I know and love who do not have enough food. Who have never eaten a doughnut. And so while tossing half a doughnut is not a big deal, it is a big deal. 

As a little child I thought the solution was for my mom to mail our leftovers to "those kids." I was aware of them, even then. But now they are my kids, I have personal investment in them. Now I look at that doughnut, laying in the trash and feel so much...how did I get here, to where I am throwing away food? Is it okay for me to be so happy here--away from them? Can I really live my life while I know theirs is being stunted and stolen away from them? 

I am working for Living Stones. I invest many hours a week to represent these children, and connect them to Jesus and a better life. I am making a difference. And it is just half a doughnut. But the holy discontent will never let it be just that.

The questions will always continue to resurface. Am I giving my all? Is Jesus asking me to sell all I have and give it to the poor? Not everyone--but is He asking me? Is He saying to Go into all the world: the world-parts that will make it hard to raise a family, that will have medical care that is lacking and can mean the difference between life and death? That won't have libraries? All of that with no financial security?

Sometimes it really sucks that I can't live a normal life. That I can't just eat half a doughnut.