FASTING -- To Be or Not to Be...Fasting, that is.

“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”

John Chrysostom c. 349 – 407, Archbishop of Constantinople

Okay, can I just be direct?

As the New Year has brought talk of participating in any sort of FAST-- it has been like a four letter word to the "other girl" (aka: my flesh girl).

Why?
Because Fasting suggests to my 'Black-and-White' way of thinking,

that I do it ...  or I don't do it 

there's no in between. 

And I've given up Fasting at the first stumble so many times that I've been afraid to start again... I haven't wanted to fail.

But this year is different...

I'm truly dedicated to the pursuit of what will make my Spirit Girl healthier so when our Pastor reminded us today that our church would be starting a voluntary Fast in February...i felt the pressure to respond (granted, the pressure was not coming from the pulpit, but from something inside of me that knew this was my year to participate.) Ugh!

...I felt sure he was going to say yes I should Fast and that he would choose candy because it's the thing I feared giving up the most. So when I asked Him, and then immediately heard..."Candy".

I thought, "Great!!!   I knew it! Ugh!"

(Quick backstory: I dreaded giving up candy because as a child, it seemed to gratify many of my unmet needs. As an adult, I've struggled with the dependence formed by relying on sweet treats: from helping me to feel better temporarily, to providing a sweet distraction from the bitternesses of life, of loneliness or even the frustration of not knowing how to solve my problems.)

But then a funny thing happened,.. 

I heard another voice say,

"Why don't we try this?"

Huh? I thought we'd already made a decision? Can we just get this over with? 

But instead, I heard the Father say, 

"How about whenever you get home from work and you're going to sit down at your computer to relax, go on FB, etc... and you haven't yet connected with Me for the day, come and connect with me first before you go to the computer?" 

He continued, "We're trying to get away from this 'black-and-white' thinking, right? This ALL or NOTHING? So when you come to me first, your needs for connection, for relaxation, for reassurance and so many others will be me met with me. Isn't that the reason you go to the computer after you've been on one all day at work anyway?"

I was so afraid that God was going to say candy, that I just told myself candy so I could just get it out of the way and not having to deal with making the decision.

But what God showed me was
that at the end of the Fast,
where would I be?
How would I be different?

That's why he instead suggested that a better Fast would be learning how to come to him first, even before I knew I had needs, so that He could meet them and then I'd no longer need to find what I was looking for in spending time with the computer or ultimately eating candy.

My unmet needs would now be met...by Him.

If you enjoyed my story, you might enjoy this article about Pope Francis and his take on fasting:

http://time.com/3714056/pope-francis-lent-2015-fasting/