There’s something about being around the Isaiah House women that brings out the truth in me. There’s nothing neat, nothing tidy, nothing expected. All they are hoping for is dinner. So when they get a show and presents and people taking an interest in them, they aren’t quite sure what to do. There are a few who seem like they might be suspicious (that’s impossible to judge – it’s just their body language), but the great majority take it for what it is, and I find them amazingly trusting.

Maybe that is why everything that happens there seems more real than what happens anywhere else. It’s almost like it doesn’t have to happen, but it does anyway. You are taken for face value at Isaiah House. If I walk around feeling awkward that’s my feeling entirely. No one is making me feel that way.

Prior to our first visit there, I was anticipating being judged by the women. Judge? They don’t have the time or the energy. They don’t care what motivates you; if you are there for them they will gladly receive whatever your bring.

In comparison, I feel so loaded up with pretense, judgment and expectations; it’s amazing that anything real gets through at all. It’s a weary game we play that breeds suspicion and lack of trust. We try to do things we have no business doing, like judge someone else’s motives when we don’t even know our own.

There’s only one way to get over lack of trust. Start trusting. Become vulnerable. Risk who you are to find yourself. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is thinking (you can never determine that anyway); it only matters what you do.

Leave it to the women of Isaiah House to teach me what I thought I’d been teaching: “We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2)