Fasting {week 1}

*A note before you read this. After doing an audit of my blog in 2022, I have decided to leave content that speaks to the Christian I was at the time this was written. I no longer identify as Christian (and haven’t for a very long time.) I chose to leave these posts because it is who I was then and it is important to me to be honest and true with every iteration and evolution of self that I experience. I may decide to add comments to the end of posts like this as well

Last week was my first 24 hours of this 24 week fast. As I stated in my first post, things started off really rough.

So as I prepared to eat meatless and log off of social media, things started happening. First, I was in such an extreme state of physical paint, I woke crying and it just continued through the day.  I read quite a lot about “retracing” and “healing crisis” where, when given the right nutrition, a body in adrenal failure/fatigue as mine is will release toxins that have built up.  While painful, thankfully, it doesn’t normally last long.  Then, a tiff with my husband. Then, twice within the span of a few hours, texts from two different people bringing up the same name. A person and situation God had me fast about last year. The same person that made many, many false accusations about me–I thought I was done with the person and situation until last year when he was hired on at the church we were attending and we chose to leave that congregation.  But before I knew it was coming, God led me to fast for 6 weeks. Within days of the fast ending, I’d been thrown into this situation with this person coming back into my life. I felt the fast, while unknown to me, was to prepare me to fight this battle. The lessons were many. I recognized all of this as a spiritual attack of the enemy after receiving the second text. I prayed for strength, wisdom, knowledge, and discernment for the duration of the fast.  And I unplugged.

I logged off and grabbed a book I’ve been wanting to read for years. I took a nice, hot Epsom salt bath and went to bed early. Thursday morning, I was still feeling very exhausted, drained, and my body was in pain. So I rested and tried to feed my body healing things: bone broth, extra protein, extra Vitamin C, and prayed that the healing of this adrenal failure was beginning.

I also found an amazing book I’d started to read before we moved. I’d began to read it and journal my progress through it in the same journal I’ve been using for my fasting journal.  When I opened the journal to write about this new fast, I found (from the chapter one questions of this book) that I’d notated a verse that screamed out to me and was in direct correlation to my mosaic vision and *this* fast!

Your job is to pull up and tear down,
take apart and demolish,
And then start over,
building and planting.

Jeremiah 1:10

When I saw that verse I knew I had to search for the book in my mess of unpacking and thank God I found it!

I met Michele at a conference a couple years ago. I don’t know if the book was in the works at that time or not. Reading it during this time of quiet, I also found there were a few chapters I read that spoke directly to a project a friend and I are involved in (that’s on the back burner for many reasons) but it seems that the words in these chapters have opened up a whole new chapter on our project that will require much prayer and study!  (and you know the nerd in me loves to research!)

I still haven’t finished it book, and because I started it months ago, I’d really like to re-start it.

And then, I picked up my phone and touched the Facebook app and it opened and I answered some private messages and then I was like OHHHHH MAN!!! I’m on a social media fast! What did I just do??  (ugh. for real.)  I asked forgiveness (and of course, He granted it.) and I hid my phone.

I started feeling better physically throughout the day. I relaxed, prayed, read, and tried to be faithful and obedient.  I commented to Phil that I was doing far better with the abstaining from meat than I was staying off of social media!

Toward evening on Thursday, I needed to get dinner in the oven (a ham, for after the fast was over.) It was one of those bone-in, whole hams that are already cooked. I tasted it. Chewed up that scrumptious morsel. And promptly kicked myself because this was also supposed to be a meatless fast.   Fail. again. (for real.) sigh.

So there’s my first 24 hours of my first week of the 24 week fast. I blew it, but I’m forgiven. And that is my lesson for this week. I suck but Jesus loves me anyway <3

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