A day for fasting

Greetings,

In the Western Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent and occurs forty-six days (forty days not counting Sundays) before Easter.

Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of repentance. The ashes used are gathered after the Palm Crosses from the previous year's Palm Sunday are burned. Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent's way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults.


In the Roman Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance—a day of contemplating one's transgressions.


Our denomination does not observe Ash Wednesday nor participate the in the fasting. Mount Paran, our home church has their annual fast during the months of summer. Harry and I being the devoted observers we are…. decided to observe the fast during the 40 days preceding Easter. (Fasting in the summer is hard… we like Dairy Queen vanilla milk shakes too much)


So several years ago, early on in our marriage we decided to set aside lent as our fasting period. We each decide on the areas of our life we wanted God to move in, people we wanted God to intercede upon, and parts of ourselves we needed an extra anointing on. We thought long and hard about what we wanted to fast and finally decided to give up what we most wanted to NOT give up.


Harry: coffee and bread
Me: fast food, sweets, and carbonated sodas (a.k.a. Diet Mountain Dew).


Needless to say these were things we had everyday and in large quantities.
For those of you who know Harry… you know he drinks a pot of coffee when he wakes up, another pot during the day, and then a few cup or two before he goes to bed. Way too much coffee for one person. And bread…. Harry loves breads and rice and potatoes.


For those of you who know me… I used to drink about 7 diet mountain dew a day, forget to eat all day, then decide to run through the drive-thru for a quick bite…and I love junk food.


Harry and I had no clue what we were doing when we began this fasting business. For the first few days the headaches were unbearable. We were having trouble staying awake and concentration was at an all time low. Physically our bodies were having a hard time adjusting to daily life without all those chemicals.


By the end of the first week we were having trouble cohabitating. We were the most irritable people to be around. I remember at one point wanting to claw his eyes out at one point… and I think he felt the same.


For several weeks we struggled with the lack of our favorite daily intakes…but we soon adjusted. The idea of us without all our normal stimulants became somewhat freeing. The Saturday before Easter we decided to completely fast. All day we went without food or drink, only water. By 6 p.m. we were starving. But I guess that’s the point…. when you are craving something… you focus your attention on prayer and meditation. So that is what we did to sustain ourselves throughout the remainder of the evening.


That night as we lay in bed…around 10:30 we had tossed and turned for about an hour. It is extremely hard to sleep on an empty stomach. But as we lay there we discussed how our fasting had come to an end…. how we were going to our favorite restaurant after tomorrow’s church service….how we are going to order our favorite dishes….how new did not know if we wanted to even go back to the days of caffeine slavery.


By about 11:15 p.m. we had wound ourselves up to the point we were starving. **FYI never talk about food when you are fasting…just not a smart thing to do** We lay there listening to each others hollow stomachs growl. We each look at each other and new exactly what we were about to do….


With trepidation we jumped out of bed, tossed on our clothes and ran out the door. We had decided to go through the Krispy Kreme drive thru, while the HOT sign was still on, put the 2-dozen doughnuts in the back seat and a mega big gulp of fresh coffee in the cup holder. We timed it just so….we would be in the Taco Bell parking lot by 11:55 pm. By the time we paid for our tacos the clock had struck 12:00 and therefore it was officially Easter. AND we dug right in. We had eaten the entire bag of Taco Bell and followed it with the warmest most scrumptious doughnuts I had ever tasted.


Later we crawled into bed….full as stuffed little pigs, and oh so happy. We drifted soundly off to sleep. Yes, that was our first fasting experience.


There have been many others…but never to that extent. Harry has since to give up coffee…and I almost dried up not eating fast food.


This year we have decided to give up….


Harry: starches, sweets
Me: sweets….as far as diet mountain dew, the NEX does not have any….and fast foods…not a problem here on Crete…there are not any!


All silliness aside, it was an amazing to see how God moved in our lives. I think of the lists of things we wanted to spiritually accomplish, the areas we wanted to move and intercede in… God was faithful in every single last one of them. He taught us a lot that first year. And it is an experience I would not trade for all the doughnuts in the entire Krispy Kreme restaurant on Cobb Parkway.




Blessings to those with a full belly,

Kristie