Life is Like a Piano...

Life is like a piano.
What you get out of it depends on how you play it. –Tom Lehrer

I am fasting right now, so my energy level wanes during the day, but I needed to lose a good 15 pounds. (Actually more like 18, but I was giving myself some slack.) I did not work in a cleansing water fast in January as I normally try to do. That in part was due to the fact that as I have gotten older, I tend to get leg cramps at night in the winter, even though magnesium supplements help. I also tend to get leg cramps when I fast. The idea of doubling up this cramping challenge in January was not something I was excited about doing at the time.

I decided to do a milk fast, which means I drink about 2 ounces of raw whole milk with 2 ounces of water in the morning and in the evening. I also have been eating about 2 ounces of yogurt in the afternoon. So, while my digestive system is not complete closed down, the milk keeps my metabolism on a high level spurring my body to burn off fat stores faster. I am about half way to my weight goal.

The months that followed January were still too cold and just as I thought I might be able to give a fast a go, we were almost in April. The month of April...I can only describe it as Piano Month or maybe Crazy Piano Month! This year it turned out to be crazier than ever before.

The Princess, who was not particularly interested in going to college and did not know what she wanted to do even if she did, suddenly decided that she wanted to go to college for piano. This same girl that begged me for a few years to quit, yet in the past year has blossomed in her skills and likes to take on challenges.

First, the Princess had decided to do something new, to apply and submit an audition video for the Reinhardt Piano Festival. Despite she did everything as last minute as possible and it took 3 hours to load her 10 minute video to YouTube, which put it after the deadline, she was accepted.

Second, there was the AG Georgia District Fine Arts Festival in which the Princess won first place last year. This year she did not place, but her score was high enough to be invited to the Nationals in Houston, Texas at the end of July. There was more competitors possibly because Nationals are closer and will not be as expensive to attend.

Then she was to perform in the annual Spring Piano Recital that her piano teacher organizes. This year she played four pieces throughout the program and the final piano piece, which was a great grande finale kind of song. 

And my baby girl then turned 17 years old!  

So, after the birthdays, because my husband's follows hers, I decided to lose the extra weight I have been carrying for so long. It is amazing how a fast can also change my perspective about other things as well. I look around the house and think, this can go and that can go. 

I am in the process of selling off all our homeschool curriculum that has been sitting on shelves unused or that we finished (or quit) long ago. Time to streamline. This is her last year and I need to prepare for the next phase of her life and of mine.

My Lord, thank you for giving my daughter such a wonderful gift and now the desire to use it. May she do so to glorify You.

Slowing into Fast

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God. -Andrew Murray

With all the stress that began before Christmas when the Queen Mother fell on her knee, somewhere along the way I dropped my one-day-a-week fast and I did not get to my January detox fast and that is usually at least one week to three. And I gained some weight, into numbers that usually make me feel sickly and more pain, but I have been heavy on supplements and actually I felt stronger this time, which only confirms how much the stress was zapping my energy and the extra food and nutrition was keeping me going.

There is no good break for fasting within our lives right now, however my husband began his a week ago. My digestive system is a bit more sensitive than his. I usually do better if I work down to fasting over a few days, so I began to eat increasing lighter and mostly raw foods for the last week. I am feeling it. I was mindful that I have a dental cleaning scheduled tomorrow and there is no avoiding the breath issue when fasting regardless of how much mouthwash one uses, so I had it in mind to stop eating completely tomorrow after the appointment for at least a week or a little more.

Usually, my husband and I observe a rule that we made long ago that we do not fast at the same time, but we literally have only short breaks between planned activities. My husband wants to get his mother's house on the market in July. We decided that having an estate sale is the best option, so we are planning for me to go to Florida alone in a couple of weeks and meet with an estate broker. I will be taking some things from my home to be in the sale and bringing some things back that are keepers also. So, this week I am looking through our stuff to pack up and take to Florida to place in the sale—while fasting.

It does not escape me that this activity will take more energy, but there is a correlative aspect of detoxing and clearing out that I find to be appealing on both sides. Most of the dust collectors I have are ones that were given to us by the Queen Mother and we kept because she takes it personally if she did not see them when she used to visit, but we kept them because in the back of our minds, she might have lived closer to us one day. That is over in our minds now.

The Queen Mother had pneumonia and is having serious issues with water retention. We know her immune system is compromised, but now we are pretty sure that she has had damage to her kidneys and possibly her liver and heart due to the septicemia. She is now taking a diuretic, but it is having little effect. She is still border line for going into assisted living, now that the wound on her knee is nearly healed completely, but with the complications that keep showing up, it seems likely that she will remain in the nursing home for longer...perhaps for the rest of her life, which may not be for a year. It seems to us that she is in the early to mid stages of congestive heart failure or multiple organ syndrome, the labels seem interchangeable.

As sad as that makes me, it makes me sadder that she chose to live alone for six years when she could have lived near us, actually attended one of the Princess' recitals, or just went out to dinner with us now and then. Now we are trying to make decisions about whether or not to keep some of her furniture that she would need for assisted living or just sell it all, and if we do not sell it all, do we rent a storage facility? Just things like that. I have been asking my Lord and I feel like He is telling me that we will not need to keep any of the furniture, but a part of me thinks it would be better keep some pieces and not need them, than to sell them all and find out she will...and knowing how it will upset her if they are all gone.

This fast I am hoping that both my husband and I will hear God clearly and we will act on what He is telling us, not what we think is the logical course. 

My Lord, these are hard times with hard decisions to be made. Please guide us heavily.

Fasting is Not Easy

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world.
~John Piper, A Hunger for God

I started officially prepping for the fast one week ago today, although I actually started a few days before by simply eating less at meals. When I officially started I began eating more live and raw foods and with a couple of evening meals of turkey soup, mostly broth. On Monday I officially (and reluctantly) started the fast.

This fast is not water only, but more of a play it by how goes kind of thing. For instance, yesterday was my errand day. I was kind of weak in the morning and about halfway through my shower, I felt like I might pass out; this even though I drink about two ounces of raw milk watered down to a 1:1 ratio before bedtime. After spending about five minutes with my head down, I finally was able to finish up quickly and drink some diluted raw milk. Then I had to lie down for about 20 minutes for my body to assimilate the nutrients and level out.

Afterwards I was better, but I was concerned about being out all day so I made a thin smoothie to take with me as well as warm tea—I so love my new thermal mug that keeps it warm all the day! I sipped on both and still had over half of my smoothie left when we returned home and I had no issues with fatigue beyond the usual.

Last night I kept feeling like I had not slept. I think I woke up about every hour thinking I had been lying awake the entire time. I did not want to leave my bed but once up, I had so much more energy than I have has this week! Stepping on the scales pleasingly revealed that I still loss weight. So far, I have lost seven pounds. My goal is to lose eighteen, which is a bit under the weight I consider a good balance for me. I go a bit under because I tend to gain a two to four pounds after the fast ends, depending on how carefully I come off the fast.

Fasting is not easy, especially when going grocery shopping for the family. Everything smells absolutely delicious. I can actually smell apples as I pass them, and I probably always do, but their aroma never gets my attention as much as when I fast. Oh, and all those signs with food on them! Yes, I notice them always, but when fasting, they appeared to have been magnified. I do not watch regular TV but I know from past experience that the food commercials are far more enticing as well and there seems to be so many more of them. I am not even going to mention the food that is just sitting in my house readily available to my reach and the fighting the familiar habit of reaching for a snack—a habit I should not even have!

No matter the reason for fasting or what type of food fast or how experienced I have become with fasting for the last 25 years, it is always the same. It is just a matter of will, but when I write "just," it is not to suggest fasting is easy. It is hard. There is the struggle against the physical and the spiritual with the emotional ping-ponging between them. I did not have a specific spiritual agenda for this fast although for me there is always a spiritual benefit, even if unexpected and not even conceived. Mostly, I needed to restore myself and my health.

I already have less hip pain regardless how I sit, but it still has a ways to go. The base of the neck has only slight tightness after I wake up and it disappears in an hour or two. My face looks younger with all puffiness eliminated. Before this fast, I was having a bit of sinus pressure with headaches and draining, but that disappeared while I was still in the fast prep stage. Of course, my clothes are fitting better, with those extra layers in trying to keep warm.

All in all, the fast is going well. I am hoping that I will meet my target weight in the first week of February....hoping. I will say that I have kept my weight within certain limits, as I vowed to do when I was a teenager. Not too bad for a girl who used to be called "thunder thighs."

Thank you, my Lord, for the healing during a fast. Even though it is challenging, it has rewards.

The Need to Fast

He who eats until he is sick must fast until he is well.
~English Proverb

The stress from the last few months that resulted from my daughter with the school, the play, and all that the issues that took place within a few short months took its toll on my health, emotionally and physically. The emotional atmosphere in my home is back to being normal with a daughter, who again laughs easily but can also be a bit moody, which is to say each day has its swings of ups and downs within ranges that I can tolerate well...for the most part. Physically? Well, that is another story.

My husband is still having some issues with his back that he is diligently treating; I mention this now because being empathic, sometimes I do not know what is my own pain and what is coming from someone else, particularly someone I think of and/or am near often. Basically, what is theirs becomes mine own eventually.

However, I have two issues that are definitely my own. One is that I gained quite a bit of weight even though we did not make cookies and eat as many sweets as we usually do around the holidays. In part that was probably because I knew—without daring to step on the scale—that I already was at my holiday weight well before the holiday feasting. Then I gained a bit more!

The other is that I have had a pain in my right hip when I sit certain ways that my chiropractor identified as an irritation of the bursa. I have had it probably for nearly six months and it will heal if I can keep from sitting in positions that irritate it, which are my favorite sitting positions, of course. I had an issue with a knee that I injured in a fall when skating that got much better after a year, except for now and then. What cured it once and for all was the 40-day fast I did just over five years ago.

I also have been having nagging upper back and base of the neck tightness and aching, especially on my right side. This usually is common when I have emotional issues that are even more nagging and difficult to remedy. The low back issue started before my husband's and seemed to be related to the hip problem, but now it is worse probably compounded with what I am getting from him.

I am looking old, more like my age actually. Not a big thing but even with my aging hair, my skin usually looks far younger. Fasting raises the human growth hormone levels, our own built in fountain of youth, so to speak. I would like to turn back the excellerated aging I did the past few months.

It is just time to do a fast.

Now here is where the mental fight breaks out, because as much as I love all the wonderful benefits from fasting, I also hate some aspects of fasting. I hate to fast in the winter, because I have a very difficult time staying warm enough to be comfortable: layers of clothing are required even inside my house. Since I went through that little thing they call the change of life, I tend to get feet and leg cramps at night particularly in the winter, but even more so when fasting, so I have to remember to take a calcium, magnesium, and potassium supplement.

I hate how it kills my social life, even though just a temporary thing, because most fun social events involve food and while I have the discipline to not be tempted to eat, it seems to make other people uncomfortable to eat around me when I am not.

Reduced energy levels are a big concern for me when I have need keep up on my responsibilities with the addition of renovations I need to do in the house. When I do a long fast as I am hoping to this time, I usually cannot take on much extra than just getting through the typical day. However, I will need to try to do more.

I am not certain what kind of fast I will be doing. It may not be water only. However, when I started preparing or eating down to a fast, I usually get to a point around two weeks where I do not want to eat at all. I am planning to have at least two ounces of raw milk before bedtime so that I can sleep through the night, because insomnia is another issue I have with fasting. The raw milk also kicks up my metabolism so that I continue to burn off the fat stores and release more toxins past the two week plateau period when the weight usually comes off more slowly. I am not going for a time period but more for a certain weight so I do not know how long I will be fasting, but I am looking forward to the morning when I wake up to realize I am no longer in pain. Actually, it feels like my own body is telling me it wants to fast of late.

My Lord, please bless this fast with Your healing and Your strength.

At the Close of the 21-Day Fast

Unless you put prayer with your fasting, there is no need to fast. If it doesn't mean anything to you, it won't mean anything to God. ~Jentezen Franklin

Here am I...at the close of the 21-day fast and I am still wrestling with this "love myself" thing. I now well aware of the depths of this problem, I recognize it in my thoughts, but it seems to remain unresolved, not that God is done with me, but I had this hope....

Frankly, I had a very difficult time praying during this fast, more to the point I feel I failed in that respect. For the corporal part, we were to be praying about this year as a season of acceleration, multiplication, and increase based on prophetic words given to our pastor. The goals are local outreach, global missions, and Encounter 2014 (which is an intense spiritual retreat, I think). I wanted to pray about these things, but my mind wandered more than usual or I kept running head first into this "love myself" thing as if God wants me to work through this with Him the most...and it did not help that I seem to want to avoid God on top of it, which He often reminded me of what I was doing as I did it.

I have always thought of myself as conceited and selfish, and I still think that. On the other hand, I feel that I have no worth except in the things that I do or provide for others. I think certain things contributed to this besides my childhood, like many of the churches I was in. This might explain why I have hurt feelings left over from some churches and even anger towards some church philosophies: mainly the ones that seem to beat down their congregation and perhaps, in particular, women. It is not that I disagree with the scriptures used, but just how they were used to shame and beat congregations into submission. This in contrast to encouraging people to learn to listen to God themselves and act on His leading rather than relying completely on pastoral leadership as the sole mouthpiece of God. Even some of the church members that talk the right talk, with amens and hallelujahs in the service, seem to not hear God's words in their daily lives and frowned on those that did.

So, I hid away in those "safe" churches and kept quiet most of the time. I tried to fit what they expected of me as a member, as a woman, and as a wife. Part of me used to scream inside that I was as much of a human being as any man, that I had worth, that I hear God speak to me who is the greatest authority, but after awhile even my internal screaming became silent and I became even more complacent just to get along with everyone else. It still did not win me any friends, so why did I bother to try? There was only one church that really showed my husband and me how much we were appreciated and loved, and would be missed when we moved from Florida. The good news is we are now in a church that is very like it: only nearly 17 years later did we get back what we were missing, but the church is only three years old so...I guess we had to wait. These people get into your life and invite you into theirs. There is a greater sense of community than we had before.

Anyway, this is not meant to be a another gripe about churches, but rather I am just analyzing the influences in my life trying to identify what is my issue with "loving myself" and what that really means from God's perspective. I have always been taught that loving yourself is wrong; loving others more is right; loving God the most is ideal. That self-sacrifice is the greatest good. That hating your life means you love God more. If you are last then you will be first...all those humbling things that Jesus Himself said. However, when the visiting pastor was praying over me months ago and was given the message to give to me that I think I am being humble but I am not, that if I did not love myself I could not really love others, I was so very confused and highly disturbed. I thought I was doing that part right but here this man was telling me that I should take off my sunglasses to see that it really was daytime not night time like I thought. It just flipped my world, but I was not ready to flip with it...and I am not sure I still am. And I do not know the source of this, but there seems to be a measure of fear involved with this thing also. 

So, here am I at the end of this fast...I feel I did not pray as I should have, as long as I should have, or about what I should have, nor did I get a final resolution about healing my heart, but I also know that sometimes what I need comes after the fast has ended, so here am I, my Lord, hoping this healing of my heart is yet coming.

~ My Lord, reveal to me what I need to understand so that it will heal my heart and I will learn to love as You wish of me. ~

Day 14 of the 21-Day Fast

God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.
~Max Lucado

I do not think I have ever disliked a fast as much as I have this one. This healing of my love-heart issue...well, I know in the end I will be better for it, but the process...I have been in a deep soul wrenching cry quite a few times the past two weeks.

Every time I think, "Okay. I think I got it now," my Lord uncovers more of what I had hidden and that revealing requires that I must deal with it...more crying. I hear this phrase practically every where I turn: You have to love yourself before you can love others. You know, I really dislike that "love yourself" idea; it always sounds like conceit to me, but that is not what my Lord has been revealing to me. I discount myself, I do not allow myself to love myself, and therefore I do not fully accept that others love me either, so how could I really love them fully. And the real ouchie is if I have not really been loving others then I probably have not really been fully loving my Lord either, holding back from the Creator of all things, of me...how sad is that?

My Lord reminded me of something as I was preparing for church today. I used to have an alternative health-related home business in which I trained and consulted people. I also saw it as a ministry and I used to tell people that they did not have to work to be good enough for God, but only be willing to accept the grace and gifts God is willing and even trying to give to them. The irony of how that relates to my current state does not escape me. He is suggesting I take my own advice to stop resisting His love and just accept it, but I keep putting up roadblocks and He keeps making me tear them back down.

Another fragment off this issue, and I did not really want to admit it as I never like to confess to my vulnerabilities, is this past year has taken its toll on my the relationship between my husband and me. We went through real financial stress for over three years and that was less damaging to our relationship than the past year I think. I have felt that I cannot count on him because he is rarely home and I have extra chores to do, but when he is home I have been so burned out from his absence and homeschooling a reluctant (although she is improving) near-teen that I end wanting to be alone and letting him take charge. He would come home burned out from work, but happy with the change of pace, so he could enjoy cooking and do his chores. We would go to church together and do other things together, but we were really not being together most of the time.

After the fast, we hope to make arrangements to have the Princess stay with a friend for a night and the next day so that we can have some time to be romantic and make a good memory: a nice meal out and maybe a movie or a special place to go with holding hands, loving looks, and my husband again telling me that the reason he married me is because he could kiss me any time he wants to. I am so looking forward to it!

~ My Lord, thank you for the work You are doing within me and forgive me when I feel ungrateful. I know You are doing this for my good. Please bring my husband and I to a closer and more loving relationship than we have ever had. ~

The Fast is Working

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.
~Max Lucado, He Still Moves Stones

"The fast is working" is what my husband declared when I shared with him conversations between my Lord and me. I agree, but on my side it is proving to be a very painful process. Yesterday while getting ready for church my Lord and I were having one of our conversations and He asked me if there was one thing, just one thing, that I could ask of Him to heal what would it be. It took me some time as I thought of the three main physical things that I have been wanting Him to heal this past year. Then I thought of something else that was beyond them and I answered, "My heart."

Then He told me I had made the wise choice and reminded me of the day I had gone up in the church asking for healing, which I tucked away in a blog post called My Love Bracelet in October 2013. You see, He had already given me the answer months ago, but I was not looking for that answer then. I knew it was significant when I received it, but I was also disappointed that I did not receive the healing I wanted at that time. I realized that finally, after all these months, I am aligned with wanting the healing God desires for me to have. So, I guess my husband is right, the fast is working; I am willing to follow the Holy Spirit's leading into the depths of this heart issue that I probably have worked hard to ignore and avoid for years.

My Lord and I are cutting and unraveling the patchwork mending of my heart with honesty beyond what I would feel comfort sharing here (beyond what I am comfort with personally also), but I can share this one thing. Children grow up needing an anchor. Usually the anchor is one or both parents. In my case, neither of my parents. My father was abusive and my mother was too afraid of him to stop it. After they split up, my mother was a self-gratifying, undisciplined creature spending money she did not have, although she was working then, and going out with men and seeing friends while expecting the oldest child at the time to take care of everything at home with unpaid bills and hardly any food. I well remember how my sister just three years younger, who had been our mother's favorite before the baby, hated it when our mother started treating her as she had me when our  mother sent me to stay with my aunt and then decided she did not want me back; after two years of that treatment my sister left to live with another family member also.

I focused on my paternal grandmother as my role model when I was young, because we lived next door to her, but that was not really practical because her son was abusing us just fifteen feet away. Children are not practical. Gramma was a career woman who worked on a military base as a civilian with high clearance. She was not a cuddly grandmother, but she provided us with things that money could buy, like clothing, toys, and art supplies. She also paid our utility bills because the two houses, which were more like summer cottages, were connected for utilities and I doubt that my father ever even paid rent as he tended to spend money left over from groceries and beer on his hobbies. Although I later saw her as an enabler with a son that was fathered probably by her step father (even though she would never admit who the father was), I looked up to her as a young child: She was successful when men firmly reigned in the business world and she did not a man supporting her...a man she had to rely on for money as my mother did. Later I lived with Gramma for a couple of years as an adult when I first moved to Florida and although I loved her, she was no longer a role model for me. She was capable to take for herself and her things, but also manly kind of woman who would smile to your face and talk bad of you behind your back; she did not enjoy people and never went out with men that I ever remembered.

My ideal was my aunt, my mother's sister, also since I was a child and probably all of my adult life. In contrast to her sister, she was a highly disciplined and organized Christian woman who did so many things. She had a nice house that she kept extremely clean and well organized. She always has been an intensely emotional person; there was no doubt when she was happy or sad or angry and she yelled a lot at everyone when she was frustrated, so she was not perfect, but she was placed on a high pedestal in my eyes. She was happily married in a highly loving relationship, had four children, and always worked at something mostly at home and church. She got jobs outside the home when they needed extra money, she went back to college to start a career around forty years of age as their business began to fail, and she worked as the main steady bread winner until she retired. Before she had to work she started many things in her church and the community, mostly around music and involving teens. I could write an entire book on this woman and her accomplishments!

My aunt has been my best friend and my role model all of my life. During this fast, I realized that I would use her often as my measuring stick. My aunt drove a school bus when it was a man's domain so if she could drive a school bus, I could too...and I did for nearly an entire school year (long story). That was how I measured my abilities, because although my aunt was larger than life when I was a young girl, it was when I lived with her for two years, I realized she was just a person and I could do anything she could plus we had so many interests in common, like art and music.

I now realized that I may have been trying to model my life around my aunt's or at least my imagined version of my aunt. When I was younger, I often wondered what my aunt would think of this or that, if she would have done the same, if she would be proud of me, and so on. This anchored me when I did not trust myself to make good decisions and I rarely consciously do this now, but yesterday I realized that it is still ingrained in me. Which makes me wonder now...who am I really and have I really ever been just me?

All my life the things I have loved, I did not let myself love too much, because I am constantly aware that they are just things and things can be destroyed or taken from me as has happened a number of times in my life. The people I have loved, I have never really let myself love fully, because people can change, disappoint, move away, or die. I allow myself just a little pleasure, but then feel guilty remembering all the people living in huts without running water or children enslaved; my life is far better than theirs. I just cannot allow myself to be too happy, to love too much, to enjoy that which my Lord has blessed me and the other side of that is I do not let people love me too much as I fear disappointing them also.

I keep my expectations on others low, but expectations of myself are very high, so high in fact that I cannot but fall short of them. No matter how well I do anything, in my mind I could have and should have done it better. It is a self-defeating attitude, I know, but one that I have had all my life. I am hoping the fast is working, that I am dropping off this heavy backpack of burdens that I have been carrying all of my life because in my weaken fasting state I now realize how very heavy it is and I do not want to be carrying it around anymore.

~ My Lord, guide me further to the me You desire me to be and may it glorify You. ~

Day Four of the 21-Day Fast

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. ~John Piper, A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer

I have this love and do-not-love thing with fasting. Even just fasting one day a week as I have for years, I have my good days and bad ones, but the third day of a longer fast is always the worse one for me. Once over that hump, it becomes more of a mundane exercise like marching a long distance when you just keep putting on foot in front of the other even though if you know you really are too exhausted to do it. Fasting strips me down to just doing what I absolutely must do and realizing the rest is just not really all that important. However, on a spiritual fast, there is another highly influential factor: God. It is when I am in this weakened state in the carnal and worldly sense that the spiritual aspect is heightened, so I hear my Lord the most and the best, but there are still things I must do.

Yesterday I drove an hour to have a chiropractic adjustment, filled my gas tank, dropped the Princess off at Living Science, drove to and shopped at my two favorite health food grocery stores (and bought way more than I planned because they were having very good sales on things I can freeze), drove back to pickup the Princess at school and then drove to her piano lesson, installed a new modem for the piano teacher, drove the hour home trying not to doze off, put all the food away, fed pets, and then went to our church's kick off service at the closer campus where it was held at 7:00. We finally got home at 10:00 and I was in bed by 10:30.

That is much to do on my good days, but on the third fasting day when my strength is waning, moodiness tipping to the dark side, and all I have is my resolve...just one foot in front of the other marching. The service was like a rally and I just was not in the mood for a rally, but we were given the vision and our goals for 2014, which seemed so overwhelming to me. I was thankful that they recapped last year when they did the same and others thought in their minds that it was impossible, yet every goal was met, because God does impossible so very well.

It was during the service I realized how much of an outsider I felt I was. I contributed it to the effects of fasting and told myself that I would probably feel better after a good night's rest. I might have, but sometime after 2:30 AM I just could not sleep at all for four hours. So I spent that time, warm in my bed, talking to God.

Actually, I would say I was having out with Him and pouring out several of my complaints that I try to keep secreted away as if He does not know them. I think getting this out to let God address it directly was for my own benefit. I was complaining the most about feeling like an outsider and He reminded me of all the times I had chosen to stay out on the fringe. Like the times, in high school when I sat on the stage in the cafeteria with a newly transferred and shunned boy that had straggly clothes and even smelled from lack of laundering and bathing at times. I probably saw the in-crowd as snobbish sitting at their claimed table in the middle of all the tables and did not want to be in it back then, but maybe I was just covering for my own insecurity of not being good enough to fit in any group or even being snobbish myself. (Many people have thought that of me, that I am snobbish, because actually I am rather reserved with crowds unless I am performing or lecturing, yet they see me being very open and friendly with small groups and one on one.) God reminded me that while I made myself an outcast with many, I also gave my friendship to someone who was friendless and ignored.

My Lord remembers the good of these things. There were many others of which He reminded me...things that I had done over years because I was out on the fringe more than in a group. And here I am again, because I am fasting food, which is never the popular choice for a corporate fast. The "connectors," as church members are called as there is no formal membership, have chosen to fast the Internet, playing games, TV, and such. Most shake their heads at the idea that we are fasting food saying they just cannot do it. One man told my husband, "That's crazy!" My husband said to me last night that he did not understand why people justify refraining from being on the Internet as a fast, as there was no Internet in the Biblical times. What did they fast? Food. What did Jesus fast? Food. Yes, I agree that we have far more distractions of the mind than in those days than people did in Biblical times, but the need to eat is a very basic need for survival and is not something that has changed with time.

Is it any wonder that people from other parts of the world see Western Christianity as soft and watered down when the inconvenience of refraining from entertainment these days serves as fasting? Now I know that all things can be used by God for our good and these people will, I hope, use the freed time in prayer and devotions, but I also know from experience that giving up more for God means more is given from God. Many people are willing to give up things temporarily that a simple power outage and drained batteries would take from them, but most people are not willing to give up an essential of life like food for even three days, let alone twenty-one.

What they miss out on is the heighten spiritual aspect. Years ago God showed me the three aspects of a person: physical, emotional/intellectual, and spiritual. He also revealed to me how one of these three is usually dominate the other two. In the unbeliever, it the emotional/intellectual aspect typically, unless one is very ill and then it typically is the physical. Both of these aspects leave a person incomplete like an animal, but the spiritual aspect is wherein the Holy Spirit should dwell. The spiritual aspect of a person is not even detectable without the Holy Spirit but may not be the dominate aspect in a weak believer either.

However, during a fast, the spiritual aspect of the believer becomes extremely dominate as it should always be. If one is devoting the fast to God, it can completely overpower the emotional/intellectual aspect, but even if not it will strongly influence it. The benefits of this in physical aspect comes in heighten healing, in part because the body is not taking in toxins to be filtered and can focus on healing, but also because of the spiritual aspect with the Holy Spirit is in effect healing the ailments of the body.

This is what I love about fasting. I do not like being hungry or having difficulty with concentration, usually the worse during the first week, or making people uncomfortable at social events where food will be served, but the healing and spiritual benefits are worth it...absolutely.

~ My Lord, thank you for talking with me last night. I know I have more to work out between us, but thank you for showing me how I believe was a weakness in my personality is used by You for good. That I have worth in Your eyes, even when I cannot see it myself. ~

Our 21-Day Fast Begins

Our greatest victories are won on our knees and with empty stomachs. ~Julio C. Ruibal

Our church has encouraged its members to fast for twenty-one days in January since it began three years ago and we are beginning this one tomorrow. As how most church en masse fasts tend to go, we have some certain things on which we are concentrating in our prayers together and one can choose what he wishes to fast. My husband and I will be fasting food, but we may have small amounts of raw milk since he will be working and I am challenged with insomnia and leg cramps with fasts, especially in the winter. The Princess has chosen to fast sweets as usual, but this time she also has chosen to fast her evening meals, which is a first time thing for her.

On New Year's Eve we went to our second Stew Jam at one of the members' home. This is where everyone brings food, most in crock pots, to share with everyone. This time my husband made a rabbit pot pie type of stew but we used noodles instead of a pie crust and to my surprise it was the most popular dishes as we had hardly any left while others had far more. That night we sang songs of praise and made a list of things we wanted to "give away," actually things we did not want and needed for God to intervene in our lives. Then we burned the lists, not in the outside bonfire we hoped to have as the wood was too wet to burn, but in their fireplace. At midnight, the man of the house blew a shofar outside to ring in the new year.

Today our pastor talked about last year being the season of Momentum and this year is the season of Increase as well as the vision God has given him for the church, for us. This was one of those services when I truly felt God talking to me personally, but I have become keenly aware lately that something has been trying to cut me off from hearing God. In fact during the service, I actually felt like I could not hear the pastor...I could hear him, but I felt like something was trying to interfere with me hearing. There are very few times I have felt spiritual warfare in my midst, but today I believe I felt it. Even now as I began write this, I could not remember what it was God was saying to me in the last half of this sermon; it is as if the sermon was a month ago rather than today. I am thankful for technology because I listened to some of his points again that were given at the other campus by simply clicking here.

This week I had strange pains again. My entire rib cage began hurting on New Year's Day, after the Stew Jam, and it was diminishing but continued until yesterday afternoon. The Sunday service before Christmas I had this same problem and felt horrible. I had no intention of going to church service, so my husband and daughter went. However, he called me after the first service to tell me that the children were singing that morning, which neither of us knew, so he could pick me up for the second service. I wanted to see my daughter sing, but I felt miserable and my mood was as bad or worse. My husband told me at the church, when I was just not willing to go into the sanctuary (yes, I can be a pouting brat in rare occasions), that while he was driving to get me he was praying and he felt the Lord tell him that I was under a spiritual attack. If you knew my husband and how he thinks, this would floor you so, of course, it floored me. I knew he was probably right, but I cannot say that the knowledge improved my mood.

Perhaps God has a purpose for me and I am a target because of it. Of late, I have been working through the idea of God loving me. I know He does in my mind, however I am realizing how much I do not allow myself to feel like I am loved or just I will not accept that I am loved or even I just will not allow anyone, including God, to love me. And at times I feel I cannot really love anyone either.

I know the reason of this and it is not just an excuse. This is the residual from having an abusive parent: the self-gratifying, twisted, manipulative, and hurtful use of the word "love." A child who grows up in that kind of "love" is one who is unable to accept the real thing. It is not like I do not now know what love is or what it should be for the most part, it is that I cannot accept it completely, even from God, and I am questioning if I actually feel it. I also am rather annoyed that every time I think I have completely healed of my past that eventually God guides me to one more thing still left over that I did not recognize previously, but in reality, we all are dealing with those things in us that are not from God. If only it were as easy as writing them on a paper and burning them up!

So, today when the pastor talked of restoration and recovering what was lost, I heard God speaking to my heart about my heart. It is not broken or cracked, just badly mended, like a sloppy hand-sewn patching attempted by a child too young to have the necessary skills. This is what I am going to be praying about during this fast and I believe this is why I have been under spiritual attacks of late, because after God unravels these messy threads and heals my heart, I believe He will have me in a ministry that I have thought to be beyond for what I could have hoped.

~ My Lord, I am ready to know Your love. Make me ready to accept it completely as well. ~

Every Fast is a Bit Different, but....

Fasting is the greatest remedy--the physician within. ~Philippus Paracelsus, one of the three fathers of Western medicine

Some fasts start out better than others; this one was not one of those. I fact it has been the roughest first five days of a fast that I think I ever have had. I have been terribly weaker than normal. Right after I finished my shower on Sunday, I felt very queasy and could not even dry off as I was about to pass out. I lay on the bed and got my bearings back only to have them wane away with every effort to stand up. I know what some people will say reading this: "See! Fasting is not good for you." I have been fasting for over twenty years and I never had this problem before...not ever. I have experienced and strongly believe that fasting is a natural healing remedy for all sorts of health issues.

That is not to say that I have never been a bit lightheaded when going up steps or standing up quickly or generally weaker, but this problem was not like that at all. My husband brought me about four ounces of milk and within fifteen minutes I was fine again. I went to church without a problem...except that my right shoulder was very painful with certain movements and I did not even injure it, so I am not sure what that is all about. Perhaps an intense healing of something I have not recognized as a problem? It has happened before. I notice the difference later and think something like I guess that was bothering more than I thought.

On the second night of this fast I began having insomnia, which is common for me usually when I have fasted for more than a week. I planned to have only tea, raw milk, and water for this fast, but I really needed to get my strength back up to make it through the week, so last night I had a bit more milk and took a few supplements: flax seed oil and fish oil hoping the Omega 3, a natural anti-inflammatory, would give me back the use of my arm; Vitamin D3 for better calcium absorption; and a Magnesium and Potassium mixture for the nighttime leg cramps that I also usually do not get this early in a fast.

I woke up only once last night, which is quite normal for me even when I am not fasting, and went right back to sleep until morning. This morning I awoke up feeling great! So much more energy and that shoulder is just a bit sore. Good thing too, because I found out just this morning that my husband will be gone all week, so I have extra chores at home, besides the horse barn tomorrow.

My husband was going to fast with me, but changed his mind and asked when I would end mine as he would like to continue my fast. This is something different. I am wondering how it will go as I was planning to fast at least a week to ten days, depending on the weight loss which is one purpose of my regular January fast. As to the spiritual part, I had some things to discuss with my Lord. Actually, I always do, so no fast goes without the spiritual aspect.

~ My Lord, thank you for Your answers to my prayers even before I know Your answers. ~

Disclaimer: Fasting Experiences Will Vary

Fasting confirms our utter dependence upon God by finding in Him a source of sustenance beyond food.
~Dallas Willard

Paula commented on my last post stating she would like to read more about the results of my fasting experiences. I smiled thinking of the paradoxical knowledge I have acquired, wondering to how to write it so that it would offer her and others the core-essence answer for which she truly seeks: the purpose of fasting. Why fast? Why do it unless you get something from it, right? Can we be even so transparent as to confess we wish to be convinced it is worth doing before we suffer missing even one day of meals?

As I was thinking over how to answer, I was reminded that I read on a Christian message board once about a young man's experience with a 40-day fast in the wilderness. He went alone. All he had taken with him was a sleeping bag. He drank directly from streams, walked and prayed, rested and prayed, heard the wild animals in the forest and prayed. At one point, he wrote about how he worried about being lost and realizing that he could die out there--who would even know? He was asked if he would ever do it again and he wrote if he had considered everything, he probably would not have done it at all, but having done it, he would do it again. I marveled at this! I realized then that I have only fasted in the comforts of my home with the distractions of my everyday life and I considered that a sacrifice...? This man removed himself from all that he knew, with not even a cell phone, and fasted! It certainly gave me a differing perspective of Jesus' fast.

Fasting is just not understood by those who have not yet fasted. The argument would be we can pray without fasting and God can answer our prayers without fasting, so why fast? Is there some mysticism involved with fasting? Perhaps. At least, I believe there is.

Remember the moment you asked Jesus into your heart? That moment something within you changed. You felt it. It was real to you. Before that moment your spiritual aspect was empty. You had life and thought, much like any other animal in God's creation, but you were created to be more: a vessel for the Spirit of your Lord. At that moment, the Comforter filled that emptiness. It is not something you can acquire and then show to other people like a new cell phone, but you then had a direct connection with your Lord wherever you were. Even praying was different somehow.

You cannot explain that transformation--not really--to someone who has never experienced it himself and especially not to someone with no inclination of experiencing it for himself. An atheist will just shake his head at your "delusions," thinking that you needed to feel something, so you did. I say this because fasting is like that and perhaps more understandably so. From the unbeliever's point of view, whatever you would experience is due to low blood sugar or lack of nutrients to the brain--you even get this from fellow Christians!

Many books have been written on fasting: how to do it, its benefits, and even why one should fast. On the flip side, I rarely find anyone who fasts in need of convincing or asking why it should be done. That is because the answers are found in the fasting itself.

~ My Lord, may those seeking answers about fasting find them through You. ~

Much Left to Give

Do you have a hunger for God? If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul's appetite for God. Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is the path of pleasant pain called fasting. ~John Piper

In my last post, I mentioned how our church had fasted for forty days last year and how many did not fast food, but things like "Starbucks, the Internet, TV, and electronic games." I do not mean to minimize these commitments, but they easily could have been New Year's resolutions. My point is how most people were willing to temporarily give up what are the excesses of their lives, but not real necessities and I would say that at least some of them, seeing how their lives could be without those things which crowd out time with God, still returned to them.

Many of those options were completely unavailable to my family. We are not coffee drinkers and definitely not into Starbucks. We had made a decision to turn off our TV service over a year ago, although we watch a few shows some weeks (and some weeks not at all) on the computer or a DVD movie, we just feel they take up so much time. We have a few computer games, although you will rarely see us playing them, but we do not have a Wii (although we might soon?) or anything else like that. We have so many other things to do that we just do not have much time to fit such things in and when we do not have something that needs to be done (actually, that never is a possibility, it is more like when we are purposely avoiding what we could be doing), there is always a good book to read, or a board game to play, or something to research on the Internet, or an scientific experiment to try (as the Princess is into that right now), or a mitten kitten who needs to be cuddled, or...well there just is always something to do other than play a game all by yourself on a box.

My point is that I think it is important to consider what fasting really is. I do not think that when Jesus fasted that He fasted excesses. He probably did not even have excesses! However, in fasting He suffered and denied Himself one of the things most required by the body to survive: food.

Now I know that some people cannot fast food because of medications they are taking or due to blood sugar problems, but self-sacrifice is the heart of fasting and fasting excesses is not fasting. Fasting should not just be a minor inconvenience, but something that will gnaw at you, something that allows you to suffer a bit, something that alters your perspective when you look at your own life. I understand that for those who have never done it, baby stepping into the practice of fasting is a path of learning to trust God, but it should be a progressive process, one that is continued throughout one's lifetime.

Jesus fasted. His disciples fasted. Many of the most influential Christians throughout history fasted. I think very few Christians sitting in comfortable pews fast, too few. So many people miss the blessing of the sacrifice, of tasting what Jesus chose to suffer, of this special way of communing with our Lord.

Each time I have fasted, I have been shown glimpses of my life from a differing perspective, God's perspective; I have better identified the excesses and determined free myself of them, not that I am always successful, but then human beings are a work in progress and God is patient.

~ My Lord, You have given me such wonderful gifts during and after fasts. I wish more Christians would devote themselves to fasting and sacrificing in honoring You. ~

The Healing Choice

When we have learned the process of faith for receiving healing, we have learned how to receive everything else God promises us in His Word. ~F. F. Bosworth

I am not so sure that our advances in medicine have been advantageous. I have no doubt both Western and Eastern medicine, although far apart in philosophy and techniques, have improved quality of life, cured diseases, and saved lives...but my question is to what end? Has it brought us closer to God or farther away, more dependent on God or more independent of Him?

This is the dilemma for me as a healer and the source of one of my own hypocrisies. I believe in divine healing. I have witnessed divine healing. I have been directly involved with divine healing. Yet, I also have been led and shown what would heal me personally, because I have found that I cannot facilitate healing for myself...perhaps God designed it that way for me so that I would not become too self-reliant? Perhaps that is how it is so for all healers so that we must rely on God? The answers elude me.

A friend recently mentioned that she if she had the gift of healing, she would not call herself a "healer," because all healing comes from God. I understand her thoughts very well for I felt the same way for many years, as I hid in my prayer closet. However, just lately I have begun to notice that I am less patience with this double standard I see before me. I should not call myself a healer, even though I tell how I was given this gift and that it most definitely comes from God, from Whom all healing comes as every Christian believes, yet it is acceptable for Christians to put their faith in modern medicine and a doctor, even if an atheist, and pray to God on the side to guide the doctor, rather than to wait on the Lord for His healing.

Think about that for a moment.... To do nothing but just wait on the Lord God for divine and direct healing...well, that is just crazy talk!

So, just how much faith do we REALLY have in God? We say we trust Him with our lives, believing we do until...we realize we never really have, that is, until the time we have had to do so.

Last year when my husband and I chose to refrain from eating any food for the forty days of fasting called by our church, a number of the members probably thought we were crazy. Most of them had never fasted food before and of those who did, it was one meal a day or perhaps a day. Most believe it is unhealthy, but actually it is quite healthy. Most of our church members chose to fast Starbucks, the Internet, TV, and electronic games. My husband and I both had fasted before, although never so long as forty days. While my husband dropped pounds he did not need, I dropped down to the point that I was showing too much in the ribs. Sometime after the fast ended, one of the members mentioned something about trusting God for your very life and he looked at my husband and me. He had been left with the impression that we had done just that. Perhaps we had.

However, because we had exercised fasting in the past, we were familiar with it. Not just how we would fair physically, but how it would affect us spiritually. It was something we welcomed and felt was worth the suffering and waiting. It is far easier, in a way, to practice fasting, because you know that you could end it just by beginning to eat. You are in control of it. The only thing that keeps you in the fast is your commitment and your purpose.

However, that moment when a doctor says surgery is necessary or cancer has been detected, you realize you have no control over what you are about to suffer. You did not choose it and you cannot see any purpose in it. Yes, there will be prayers to God at those times, but there also will not be much waiting for the prayers to be answered. Whatever the doctor suggests is probably what you will do immediately, asking God to bless it as you make appointments for the very thing you would prefer to be spared through healing, but you doubt that it can be any other way.

Where is that trust, that faith, in the Healer then? I have heard for years the rationalizing that Christians make that God can heal through doctors and perhaps He does, but maybe it is only because we are not patient to wait on His healing in His timing, we do not trust Him first and foremost. Perhaps we are unwilling to suffer and wait, so that His healing will be doubtlessly evident, even to the unbeliever--what an opportunity missed!

Divine healing does happen to people everywhere, but I do not think it is a coincidence that I have heard of far more miraculous healings happening in parts of the world where modern medicine is less available, where people do not have a choice, where waiting on the Lord is the only option. Where else would faith be any greater than in those who must rely on the Lord completely for their very lives?

I write this knowing I myself might not have that strength in my own faith, as I ponder this question: Have you trusted the Lord, your God, for your life...really?

~ My Lord, I have struggled with this so much. I have only questions awaiting Your answers. ~

Fasting, Horses, Errands, and Homeschooling

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
~Philippians 4:13

What do fasting, horses, errands, and homeschooling all have in common? My Wednesdays!

This picture could be me on any given Wednesday--minus the red pumps.

Wednesday is my weekly fasting day. I began this habitual fast in January of 2008. Yes, that means I have been doing it for nearly four years. Only on rare occasions have I switched my fasting day because of some very special event. I picked Wednesday because Thursdays are my errand day and I would be so tired on the hour (or more, depending on traffic) drive home after the Princess' piano lesson that I was fighting to stay awake the closer I got to home.

You are probably wondering what one has to do with the other. When I begin eating after a fast, I have quite a bit more energy and so I chose to fast on Wednesday so I would have more energy on Thursday.

Yes, it works!

However,...Wednesday is no longer a quiet hump day with homeschooling and preparation for tomorrow's errands. It is working at the horse barn in the morning and homeschooling in the afternoon.

Working at the horse barn starts with
      bringing the large horses into the barn;
      feeding them in their stalls;
      feeding the miniature horses in their paddocks;
      taking hay out to the back pasture;
      filling the water basins as needed
      or draining them to scrub and refill;
      spraying the horses to guard them against flies;
      letting them out of the barn;
      cleaning the stalls as needed;
      spraying the stalls for flies:
      and feeding Tucker, the dog.

The food bins have needed to be filled nearly every Wednesday, which means that I haul, using a wheelbarrow over uneven ground, 100 to 150 pounds of feed nearly every week and then lift each 50 pound bag to fill the bins, but thankfully today I did not have to do that as they were full for the first time in weeks.

With one sick mini we also have to administer medicine by mouth and wet his hay so the dust from it does not irritate his lungs and place him in one stall when it is hot with fans on.

Then we clean up the paddock of the deposits, which usually takes about three to four wheelbarrows filled, to be dump on the manure pile. This last part is not something that we have to do but it is a good thing to do and the place looks nicer. Only a few other barn helpers do it, but it would be easier if everyone did.

After this I sometimes make a run to get raw milk at the farm just a bit further out, as I did today. Sometimes I fill up our empty water jugs at the local Koger, as I also did today. Sometimes I fill the gas tank so I will not have that to do tomorrow and I did that today too.

Sometimes I do too much.

Sometimes I think that I should not fast on Wednesday with the horse barn thing and I would move the horse barn time to Tuesday morning in a heartbeat if there was someone to take Wednesday morning. However, if I do not fast on Wednesday, I fall asleep driving home on Thursday afternoon.

Perhaps I am just a bit overtired today. I suppose it would have been a better day if I had not awaken at 3:00 AM to stay awake for nearly two hours.

Because my drive drove away without me today, I cut homeschool lessons to the barest minimum: piano, math lesson, and classical writing/grammar. I could have/should have/would have blown off the entire afternoon, but my daughter was eager to get through her lessons today and I will use that anytime I can get it, even when I much rather have a nap.

Now it is nearly 6:30 PM and I am at an entire loss about dinner, which I will not be even eating. My husband is working in a place where his cell phone does not work, so I have not a clue when he will be home, but most likely not for dinner, so I now have to begin the feeding of dog, inside cat, outside kittens, rabbits, and the Princess.

I really am going to get up out of this chair,
   turn off my computer,
      stop whining,
         and just do it.


Really I am.

~ My Lord, there are times I just want to give up and today was one of those times, but I thank you for them because they remind me that You are my strength. ~

Hawk-Promise Or Insanity?

No pillow so soft as God's promise. ~Author Unknown

I awoke this morning pleasantly refreshed around 6:00 AM as if I had slept a good six or more hours, which is amazing because I was still wide awake at 1:30 AM, wondering how I was going to feel about working at the horse barn since I just could not sleep and I would be fasting too. Fasting...something strange happened when I completed my last fast.

On Monday, the first day after my fast, I came up the stairs from the basement where we do most of our homeschooling and saw a wonder on the rail of my back deck: a hawk. This was not the common red tail or red shoulder hawks I usually see. This one had no true brown or red markings. It was a slate black with some striping (I am not a bird watcher so I am probably not using the right terminology) starkly contrasted by bright yellow feet and, of all things, yellow eyes. I was so surprised that I did even look for my camera, which was just a few steps away, as I thought it was in the basement. Given the choice to experience something even though I may not recall details and running to find a camera taking the chance to miss the experience, I will choose the experience. I called the Princess away from her lessons. Obviously the girl is more quick-thinking as she went to grab her binoculars.

After calling SmokedPam, who not only used to live here and majored in Biology but is a bird watcher, we were both still perplexed at what it might be. She had mentioned a Cooper's Hawk, but it just did not seem a match as it really had no brown on it, not even the breast, just a slate black with black flecks on a white breast. However, since I have found a few pictures of them mostly black and white as the one I posted, so it probably was with Cooper's Hawk with this rare coloring and when they are immature, their eyes are yellow. Still, I think it was just too unusual.

So, from my viewpoint, this unusual hawk is perched in a quite unusual place and the most unusual part of all this is I had seen a hawk on that particular perch while in prayer when I was asking for a sign in answer; I was asking to see a hawk very close to me on my back deck. This was when my husband was out of work just over three years ago. I did see a hawk as my answer then: A red tailed hawk had been high up the next door neighbor's tree calling me. I came out and thought, "Well, that is not very close." Then he swooped down between our houses within just ten to fifteen feet of me. Okay, God, that was pretty close. Message received. I danced back inside to looks of astonishment from my husband and daughter as I shouted "I saw my hawk! I saw my hawk!" They had no idea about what I had been praying. We had cashed the last of the severance checks and no job offers, but I knew that there was one coming then. A few days later, my husband was hired and, in answer to a two-year prayer of his own, he visited Israel where he had to go for training for that job.

Everything has its season though. A year ago, following the 40-day fast, we made a commitment to give a double tithe to our church for six months, but I knew at the end of it, we would be as broke as we had ever been during our marriage and being salaried, my husband could not just make more money. Plus, his company did not give him a raise when they had promoted him a year before, nor was he going to get any increase at all for coming year. We were so concerned about our church, because it was just barely making expenses and we would have to drop back down to our regular tithe. Apparently, God had other plans. During the fifth month, when our finances were just dust at the bottom of the barrel, my husband was offered another job. A recruiter contacted him based on his resume from three years before. He was even better suited for what they wanted because of the training with his then present job, which made the recruiter very excited. He would be still salaried, but it was enough that we could continue to tithe the same amount to our church and not lose our own house.

With all these miracles, you would think I should be satisfied, and I am, but...I think God had told me something else when this all started that I have ever since doubted that I heard it right. I never doubt my Lord, just my hearing! And, even though I know that first hawk was the sign for that time, I still was thinking that I did not see what I believed I should: a hawk perched on the left side of the arc-shaped deck rail.

So, I was struck with a living vision of this unusual hawk perched just where I pictured one would be and it comes to mind that the Lord also promised more back then.

Then I wonder: Is my Lord trying to get my attention? Is this about the other part of what I thought I heard Him tell me?

Around 11:30 PM last night, my mind began swimming, as it does when I am falling asleep while reading, so I turned out the light and lay down. I prayed as I do before sleeping and found myself still awake at nearly 1:00 AM, I decided to get up and have a few sips of milk and a couple of Valerian capsules. My husband is also still awake and suggests we sit on the couch. He is concerned that I am worrying over something, but I am actually at peace...oddly, because I can think of many reasons to not be, particularly since I am reading another apocalyptic book having just finished one and being well-aware of current events.

I feel so silly over this hawk-promise thing and yet...well, I also feel I cannot share it fully, because I myself do not understand it. I tell him that there might be a change in his career coming, something that may seem nearly absurd. Then I feel even sillier, for I know my husband is always looking to work himself into a better position, but I have a feeling he would either think it is a joke or too risky? I don't know. To be honest, I don't know what it is or when it will be or if it was all just a coincidence. I do know all those other things were not coincidences!

I am hoping...hoping that I am not seeing signs where there were not any. Hoping I am hearing my Lord.

Sometimes, though, I wonder how sane I really am....

~ My Lord, I trust you. I wish to believe in all the things You wish for me to believe. I do not doubt You; I doubt me. I doubt my ability to hear You. When I get the message wrong it reflects back on You, so I am very cautious. I don't want to take any glory from You either way. I also thank you for all that You have given us and all that You will give us. ~

Fasting Off the Fat of Life

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God. ~Andrew Murray

I suppose it seems to many of my friends that I will fast at the drop of a hat. I suppose that is true in a way. I have found that fasting cuts off the fat of one's life. Oh, yes, it will cause a loss of body fat, but I am referring to all that unnecessary stuff that we tangle ourselves into while rationalizing their necessity.

I have done many fasts over the last twenty-some years up to fifteen days and many more for less days. I have fasted one day a week, Wednesday, for over three years, which I used to do on Mondays years ago before we had the Princess. Last year, at this time actually, was the first time I have ever fasted for 40 days and it was far more enlightening on so many levels!

During any fast past two days my energy level drops down, but during the 40-day fast this was not just a few days and then I pick up where I started and life goes on. 40-days is just shy of six weeks. It is a long time and life goes on during it. My husband still had to work and I still had to do my duties at home, especially with a child to homeschool. I found myself budgeting my energy, streamlining what absolutely had to be done, and just letting the rest fall away. Even the energy I would have spent angry about something did not seem worth the effort and the desire to pray peacefully replaced it.

The world dims, the spiritual awakens.

Although I do it regularly, I do not really enjoy fasting...but I just absolutely love the benefits of it. I have written about fasting many times here so you can look up some of my past posts here.

Today is the last day of a 7-day fast. This one was devoted mostly to my daughter. You see, she has been talking of being baptized for many years, but we were not certain she was spiritually ready. I believe that she loves the Lord and will readily explain her beliefs against the Big Bang Theory, but she just did not seem ready in some ways to us. But then do parents ever really feel their child is ready for the things she thinks she is? Then there was the thing that she was afraid of putting her head under water. Two Sundays ago, my daughter walked up to our pastor and asked to be baptized. This was one of the signs for which I had been waiting to show she was ready.

So, the date has been set: August 21. It will be done at a member's pool and a celebration will follow, that is a pool party with eats. This date comes just seven days after our wedding anniversary. The Princess was also born seven days before my husband's birthday. I am not superstitious, but it just seem that seven could be significant and I had a strong desire to fast for seven days. Biblically, it is believed that the number seven stands for spiritual perfection.

We all have been praying that God will prepare her heart and I have been praying for her to surrender to the Holy Spirit or as the Nazarenes would say "to become sanctified." (You can read an early post on this: Surrendering.) I am praying it will be a spirit-changing experience for her and that she will hold it dear all her life. This is why I am fasting. To cut the fat away in my life asking the Lord to do the same for my Princess so that the Spirit will awaken in her.

~ My Lord, please hear my plea. Please bless my daughter. She loves You. Now help her to come know You and willingly surrender herself to Your Spirit. May her baptism be of her heart. ~

Enough Already, Maybe Not Enough?

Our greatest victories are won on our knees and with empty stomachs.
~Julio C. Ruibal

There are times I can get beaten down and then there are times when I start getting angry because I feel like I am being pushed into a corner...and somewhere during those times I remind myself that my Lord is...He just is. I should be at peace in that.

I often think that my ideal of my Lord falls so short of what He really is. If I am to be brutally honest with myself, I just want Him to be my kind of god, but actually I really should want to be His kind of child. I am sure I fall way short of His ideal in that...way short.

Right now am typing this post on my daughter's computer. "Why?" You may ask. Why, indeed. Well, my husband has not yet been able to read the data off of my lap top hard drive, which still is not working, so I used my gaming computer to make my last post, then something happened to it as well and I cannot even get into Windows on it now either. I am actually afraid to even be typing on my daughter's computer! I know what you might be thinking. At least, we have computers to spare! Yes, it is one of the perks of being married to a techie kind of guy, but then we have computer parts everywhere collecting dust as well, so it has its downside too. I can say though, having had more than one computer for many years, I also know how incredibility unlikely it is to take down two computers within days of each other by the same person not doing the same thing to cause it.

I am not that upset (not like I usually would be, at least) about the computers. I am more upset that I cannot tell from where this is coming. Life in this existence is not paradise. I do not expect it to be good for me always, at least what I perceive as good for me, but I am just not sure that what is good for me from my Lord's perspective. I can see God's pathways laid out for other people quite clearly, but I am blind to my own. I am asking those, with gifts of discernment, if is this another aspect of an evil spiritual attack. It seems we have been enduring such a thing lately and some have told me is related to the fast and our 20% tithe commitment, perhaps our church also, or is this just my Lord disciplining me about how much I rely (and play, but generally just spend too much time in total) on my computer and the Internet, or is it all just a coincidence in which I would like to see a purpose when none exists.

Also, my husband noticed yesterday that our van is leaking oil again in an entirely different area than before, this after I drove it on Thursday. It could be that they simply did not get a good seal on the gasket they replaced or.... I don't want to think about the "or" actually.

Then another little thing: the temperature gauge I use to make yogurt glitched last night and I could not get it to turn off or do anything. I simply removed the battery and put it back in so it seems to be working, but right now it is like anything with technology is bent to glitch when I touch it.

This morning my husband went to a church board meeting and the good news is that our church is going forward with building onto our existing building as far as our building fund and faith will take us, which is an answer to my prayer for confirmation about the vision I believed I was given. Oh, and then I realized our phone line is dead.... Do you see what I mean? We made a call last night, but it was not working when I tried calling my husband after the meeting this afternoon.

I really am at a lost as to what I am suppose to do! Maybe I am just suppose to endure...and be content in doing so?

Ah, that may be the heart of my discontent! What probably is concerning me the most is my attitude. Regardless from where it is coming, am I honoring God in any of this? Do you see me honoring God in this, because I do not. Am I pleasing Him at all? Am I failing even more at being His ideal child? I am not disappointed in my Lord, I am disappointed in me. I want to be willing to accept anything from Him, even disciplining, but I do not know if I am being disciplined or being used as an example (some example I make) or if this is just all out spiritual warfare (for which I seem woefully incompetent to handle).

~ My Lord, for what should I pray? Please make me into what pleases You. ~

Change of Life

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fasting always gives me a different perspective about things and this last one helped me to see that the things I really want to do at this time of my life, even those things for my Lord, I was not putting much real effort into making them happen. It was like I have been waiting for something—perhaps for things to be handed to me?—but really I just needed to do give up some things and start doing the others.

While many people make resolutions at the beginning of each year, I usually do not. Instead, I tend decide what I would like to change at certain stages of my life. For instance, at forty years old, I was pregnant with our one and only child. I obviously had no particular goals other than enjoying her babyhood and my motherhood. That was a very welcomed, big change!

Yesterday I turned fifty. After having so many birthdays, the fanfare is not necessary for me. It is just another day, marking another year. I suppose it is an accomplishment I have lived this long, but it seems that many others do so what it so significant in that? You know, we have so many other things of greater interest to me that I had forgotten until my daughter asked me the date so she could put it on her math paper. It was not a special day, really. We all did the normal things. I prepared outgrown clothes for a consignment sale and my husband worked at the office until it was bedtime for the Princess. Although my husband did present me with brownies on his arrival—I do have a thing for brownies and I am pretty easy to please that way!

My husband and I both have felt a leading to become self-sufficient. This feels so much like when we sold our lovely conversion van and bought the mini-van. We did not know it then, but within a month he lost his job and that worked out perfectly to help us financially get through that time. So, I am a little anxious about what this might mean about our future, but I also know that God's leading on that made it all work out, so this will work out as well.

You see, when my husband and I moved here all we wanted was a house we could afford having come from a mobile home and we prayed for the house and area for two years, then on our tenth year anniversary, he was told either he was fired tomorrow or he would agree to moved to an undermanned city within a month. You can imagine that our anniversary dinner was not exactly as romantic and carefree as we hoped it would be, but we finally recognized it as the answer to our prayers.

Life is not easy all the time, but I believe that God does grant us the things we really want. (Or is it that He places the desire in us the things He wishes to give? Always boggles my mind that.) My husband and I have wanted some land, not a lot of land, but about ten acres to have a sufficient lifestyle and the money is just not here. We would like to have a large garden, meat and milking goats, chickens or ducks for eggs mostly, and at least one horse for the Princess.

We have been desiring those things, but for the last few years we have wondering if we getting to the age that it would not be feasible. Still, I have been praying about this, the Lord has been telling me to do with what we have. Not just be happy where we are, but more of work with what we have as far as we are able. It has been very strong all this summer. To be honest, why would He provide us with more when we have not been making use of what He has given us so far?

Now that the Princess is a pretty responsible nine-year-old and able to help with so many things and the Lord seems to be guiding us, my husband and I have felt that it is time to make a few changes. We will be using our yard more for food gardens, but we do also need a couple of barn cats to keep the squirrels from stealing so much. We did not even get one ripe peach off our tree this year and they are just as bad with tomatoes! I am praying that the Lord will provide the right cats, good hunters who will bond with us well and that our dog will stop chasing cats, or at least will not chase these cats. Starting with kittens might be the best way to go, but we are waiting for the Lord to provide them. Shelters here have $100 or more adoption fees per cat!

Since we cannot raise our own livestock, my husband decided that it was time he did something he has always wanted to do. He will be hunting for deer. He hardly ever had weekends off before and the hunters he knew never had the same weekends off he did. All that has changed and this year land to lease for hunting became available quite late before the season, so he got a few friends together to form a club and won the bid on a piece of land that has good deer activity. Actually, they raised the hunting limits this year because the deer population is quite high. There are no guarantees with hunting, but I believe the Lord has blessed this as well.

We have our work cut out for us in the months ahead and for me it just all seems to fall into place. Since the fast—I just have to say again what a blessing that was to us personally—my husband and I have a dream and a united purpose, we have stronger, hardier bodies to do the extra labor (Such a huge difference there, I cannot tell you!), and many other resources that just seem to be making it happen within our means, even though we are stretched pretty thin financially right now. My Lord is so good!

~ My Lord, thank you for providing what we desire and reminding us that we must work with what we have and giving us the blessing of health to be able to do it all. ~

Bye-Bye to Twenty

Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding on to. ~Unknown

I now feel I can tell this unspoken thought on my blog. I let go of something...a part of myself. I am not sure I will ever get it back. I am not sure I ever want it back. Yes, I am pretty sure it was not worth keeping, although I could get it back if I really wanted it.

It happened during the 40-day fast. I did not mention it before because I did not want to take away from the spiritual focus and significance of the fast. However, I lost about 15 to 20 pounds during that fast. It is gone. It has stayed gone for nearly month with a vacation (of sorts) in between. I am thinking it will not be coming back easily and I do not need it. It is a vanity thing, I know, but I am very pleased with the way my clothes are fitting—actually I should say that I am very pleased with the way my thinner clothes are fitting because many of my jeans are just too big now.

My husband lost about 45 pounds! We both weigh about the same as when we were first married. Of course, being that it is over twenty years later that weight just does not have the same look, but we know how to shape our bodies because both of us used to practically live in the gym. My husband was a competition body-builder and trainer. He even was part owner of a gym at one time and trained a co-worker of mine, who won a number of local competitions (more than he did, I think), but I found that he had trained her after we had met later.

We have a workout area in our garage that was recently cleared of clutter (Yay!) and we have been begun using it again. We just gave up on working out mostly after the Princess was born, but before that it was not only a big part of our lives, it was one of the main things we had in common when we met. I still enjoy working out and I wanted the Princess to learn the proper ways of doing it also. She has begged us to show her since she was four years old—I suppose I should not be surprised. Then there is that whole modesty issue with it that I will have to address with the Princess, which was not an issue for me when I was working out and lived in Florida where swim suits were common wear and shockingly tiny. In comparison, I was fairly modest (most of the time).

I have digressed....

I wanted to share a few of things that this fast confirmed for me:

1. Typically, a person loses several pounds in the first 5-7 days and then usually about a pound a day until the fast gets to about two weeks. At that point, the body makes adjustments in metabolism so a person tends to slow down the weight loss; this is one of the reasons that if I am fasting to lose weight, I usually only go up to two weeks. Of course, much depends on the amount of body fat one had at the beginning and what type of fast one is doing. Our fast was supplemented with juices, broths, teas, and raw milk, all diluted with water, as well as water alone. I read somewhere that the average American has enough body fat to do this type of fast for 70 to 90 days. Unbelievable, right? I have heard people tell me they cannot fast even one day although they had no health issues to prevent it; this is simply a mind-set and fasting does help a person change his ideas about what he can and cannot do.

2. Having about two to four ounces of whole raw milk before bedtime actually stimulated the metabolism enough even after the first two weeks to continue a higher rate of weight loss for my husband. When I only lost two pounds in two weeks and was waking up twice a night and having difficulty sleeping, my husband suggested the milk before bedtime. I slept better and began losing weight also, even though I was supplementing with juices more during the day! Just a little fat can be a good thing after all! (I did do a raw goat milk and water fast many years ago and I was very pleased with the results, but that was a health experiment, not a spiritual fasting thing.)

3. On long fasts, your body will regulate its weight loss according to how much body fat you have. My husband lost more than I did, because he had more to lose.

4. Regardless of what many medical professionals have told people for years, fasting does not make you gain more fat after the fast is over and you start eating. Their philosophy is that the body goes into starvation mode and begins storing even more fat whenever you eat. Actually, the body has so much greater need to use the nutrition it is taking in that it cannot bother with storing it! (Honestly, it scares me sometimes when I think these people have degrees.)

5. Longer fasts are like hitting the restart button on your metabolism. It is definitely higher than before the fast and produces a more energetic feeling. Digestion of food is far more efficient, energy is increased from the foods eaten, and healthier foods are more enjoyed.

6. Based on recent research, fasting heightens the human growth hormone (HGH) naturally. HGH enhances healing, slows aging, encourages fat loss and muscle building, and even brings back some youthful qualities! This bears repeating: Fasting can actually stimulate muscle building and fat loss.

6. Fasting is a self-discipline that inevitably infiltrates other parts of your life.

7. After a fast, it is just as easy to maintain the new lower weight level as it was to maintain the previous weight level. I really don't eat much less than I did even before I began working out. You probably are wondering how can one be leaner eating as much as one did before? I have lots of ideas as to why this happens including many of the aforementioned benefits of fasting, but regardless of what reasoning I have, it still seems like a miracle to me as well.

Fasting has a number of other benefits such as detoxing the body, but I just wanted to address the ones that were a confirmation of what I already believed but had not really experienced since I had not done a fast beyond two weeks before. It was an amazing spiritual experience and now I am enjoying the physical advantages very much.

I could justify that we are working out to be stronger and have more endurance because we plan to do some laborious tasks planned in the coming months and that is a part of it. However, to be honest...well, I suppose it is vanity, but...yeah, I am going to say it: I do look good!

~ Thank you, my Lord, for the miraculous health benefits of fasting. ~