Fasting for a Month was Harder and Easier and more AMAZING than I could have imagined...

After 33 days of fasting, this is what I am eating for the first time, tomorrow morning, then  a Christmas party in the evening:

I wrote this on my 33rd day, while listening to this song by Jenn Johnson: 

It has been an absolutely incredible time, really a time of such favor, as hunger for food hasn’t been the struggle so much as it has been the desire for taste, choice, to experience the joy with others as they eat new things, and truly enjoying the experience of eating with others. I have learned there really is a fellowship, a shared experience when you eat food together with others. Receiving the gift of those who have made it and the combinations of colors, tastes and textures that make food, well, FOOD.  (if you remember the Pixar movie Ratatouille, you’ll know what I mean -- here is a review that sums up what I mean!)

However, now I sense the favor to go without food, milk, juice, etc for this long is finally waning. I am exhausted, its 9:56p, after a Core team youth night at ARK, but I am almost passing out now. Plus, the temptation to eat something, ANYTHING, is almost more than I care tolerate. 

I want to tell of all the amazing things that have happened in this season; the conversations with God, the joy of this intense intimacy with the holiday, the Spirit of God that has been so close, how I sense that I can hear the Holy Spirit so much better, I can relax more, and really feel like I have more time in a day. 

It has truly been an amazing time. The support from friends that have done long fasts before was also a blessing from the Lord. Their encouragement and advice was absolutely necessary to sustaining this time, as I never done a full food fast this long before. 

The first week was awful. 

All I could think about was what I was missing, instead of realizing all that I was getting from the Lord. Everything I saw, I couldn’t do, or at least it seemed like it. I coulnd’t go out and sit in a coffee shop with a friend and order a coffee. I couldn’t grab some grilled chicken & sticky rice  for breakfast on the side of the road. A quick 7 Baht ice cream from McDonald’s was not an option or even a fresh fruit smoothie from a street cart. In fact, it seemed like I ALL my options circled around me and food. I felt like all I oculd do was go to my meetings and read a book in the office after or go home, it seemed very lonely. BUT even in that first week, that showed me so much about the position that food had taken in my life and ultimately in my heart.  Wow! 

The 2nd week, it got more intense but i finally stopped whining and enjoyed the resting with God, I was so weak at times that’s all I could do and it WAS amazing. The conversations and times of prayer, and just plane resting in God’s presence was inexplainable. You just have to live it. I chose not to avoid people either just because they were in social eating situations, and THAT helped a lot, too. It was, actually, easier to be around people while THEY were eating, than to avoid the situation all together. Needing to go away and pray instead of eating, has its place, and I heard some say I just need to skip the meal and go pray instead is religious. Learning to hear God is asking Him how to spend time in His presence. I was still getting plenty of great time with God, and even more of His presence when I was with people -- because I could see Him in them! 

In the second week, I asked the Lord for a chance to drink something other than water. There was freedom there as I felt that I needed to wait out the week with water only and then on Monday I was able to have lemon juice and some sugar, and even a friend who was really encouraging me, made me a glass in her tiny & very limited  kitchen on that first day. I felt so blessed by the Lord through her. 

At that point in the Third Week, I also added tea and even added in a little soup broth, but after the middle the fourth week, I had to cut that out when I bloated up to and unhealthy size in my feet due to water retention from too much sodium and not enough water. That was quite painful and, to be honest, VERY scary. I hadn’t really realized why I was swelling so much until I asked some advice to some friends on facebook at midnight, when the pain was unbearable. Here are those pictures:

Blogging NOW: The fourth week and fifth weeks, I transitioned back into jsut water and tea -- the last full day of my fast was Friday, and even now, on Sunday. I am very limited in what I can eat, and my hunger is quite stunted. That is a good sign, as before I could eat ALL day long and not seem full. 

However, Friday what I was most scared about, besides how my stomach will react, is that I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose this clarity, this peace, this joy, this time with God. I’m scared that I will fall back in old habits, that I will return to old feelings of anxiety, desperation and gluttony. I don’t want any of those things back. 

I lost it that last night with the people closest to me.  I needed to confess to someone how exhausted I was, I needed prayer and someone gave it. But most of all I could feel these old feelings and emotions coming up and that’s what made me even more scared. 

I want this clarity of His voice, surety of the things He is saying and frequency of His presence ALL the time, but I needed to eat. 

As of Friday, I had gone down 2 notches on my belt, it feels like 3 clothing sizes and possibly 15 pounds in this time -- but I miss my ice cream, salty popcorn, Thai food like Gai Yang (grilled chicken) and Kaaw Niaw (sticky rice), but most of all Laarb Bet (lime mint salad with grilled duck). Oh and my staples... Of course, coffee and chocolate milk, how I have missed you! Plus all the fresh exotic fruit we have here, that is on literally EVERY street corner, it is cut and chilled, fresh ready to be eaten.   

I know fasting will become part of my weekly schedule now, a time to worship and honor the Lord with such a simple act of self-control. I had read from my church, as we have been fasting once a week, on Wednesdays for the last 40 days, too -- but the first Christians used to fast on Wednesday and Friday, so that looks like it will be my days, to the best of my ability. 

"Heaven's record will reveal how again and again the great victories of the Church have been won by prevailing prayer intensified by fasting." Wesley Duewell “I say 'yes and amen' to the quote above!  Victories are being won in Jesus' Name as we pray and fast and seek His face on behalf of His Church!  We are also following the example set by the early church, which put great emphasis on fasting. For at least four hundred years after Christ, His faithful followers everywhere fasted twice each week (every Wednesday and Friday)!” -- from an amazing woman of prayer, Ty King, ECB Church, Bangkok. 

My first full meal at our big Christmas party,  dressed in a Thai traditional dress.
It was amazing to have all the tastes on one plate!

That seems very exciting and challenging to me, for the season that God calls me to. I can also see these longer fasts happening more often. In fact, I have a friend that does them often, and I see how she is so mature and attentive to God and aware of the spiritual nature of most situations. I have noticed I have lost attentiveness and had let emotions and feelings take over instead of truth. At first I thought she was crazy, but I know, now, why she said she had done a 40-day fast 3 times in one year! 

Any ideas on fasting -- or revelations you have learned, PLEASE post them in the comments section below.