On Entering and Breaking a Fast

I confess I've been overwhelmed, lately, in my spirit: so overwhelmed that I haven't known how to separate--in my mind or heart or writing--the wheat from the chaff. Truth is, a person can write in a line or a circle, but there should be a vision. I like my writing tight. I believe every word matters, and if I can't write in a way that makes sense, to me, of me, I'll wait. I'm more patient than you think, too, especially with myself.

Also, I know: in the end, this business of separating wheat from chaff is the Lord's. He's not the author of confusion. When I'm not hearing Him well--when His voice is just one of so many others in my head, when all the words (His, other people's, mine) whirl around in my nog like debris in a dust cloud--I need to let something(s) go: to simplify in order to discern.

I quit facebook almost two months ago. My thinking improved but not enough, so I entered a Daniel Fast on the 3rd. In case you're not familiar, this is a twenty-one-day, partial fast based out of scripture (see Daniel 1 and 10). It's like a vegan diet with extra limitations.

I feel stronger when I'm fasting. I don't mean to downplay the spiritual implications of this statement but know: for me, the increase in strength is tied to my avoiding sugar in all its forms (including carbs). Sugar makes me sick, but it calls to me from the cupboard, and I'm weak.

Jim spent just over a week of my fast with his mom, and I put my extra strength to good use: taking care of the children, yes, but also shampooing the living-room carpet, getting the minivan inspected, helping Cade with his science-fair project, taking two children for well visits, taking two children for haircuts, putting away the piles of clean clothes in my bedroom (which almost never happens), hosting small group. I felt empowered, and loved ones came alongside.

I prayed while fasting. A lot. I asked the Lord to enter four different situations, and I know He entered all of them. I experienced most profoundly His entering my marriage; I'm sure I'll write more about that, later. God showed up, too, in smaller, quieter ways; one Sunday morning, I stepped into the choir room and a warm-up of the same hymn I'd sung over my crying baby the night before.

I vomited four times in the wee hours of the eighteenth day. A virus. (Clementine had done the same twenty-four hours before.) When I got up to take Cade to the bus, I felt released from the fast.

***

"I don't need your sacrifices," He says. 

"I know," I tell Him. "I needed my sacrifices."

He nods. "Yes," He says, and pushes the cup of flat ginger ale in my direction.