Get your Fasting on....

Happy New Year!

For the past 2 years, I've been doing a fast for the month of January. It starts the year off right and helps me rediscover my relationship with God. Believe me, when you give up sugar, alcohol, caffeine and animal products, you need divine help. I have started with a 3 day juice fast the past couple of years so I decided to do that again this year. Funny story: A couple years ago I decided that I didn't need to do the juice fast and I didn't really pray about it. I thought I would just jump right into the Daniel fast. And then I came down with a stomach bug that wouldn't allow me to eat anything. For 3 days, exactly. I got the message.

There are lots of reasons to fast, but for me, fasting is a way to recover the discipline that slowly dissolves as the year goes on and a way for me to grow in my prayer life.

[Completely unrelated: at this moment my amazing boyfriend is sitting in front of me practicing new songs on his guitar while I try not to move or make a sound, lest he stop. He's killing it..... so talented. Yes, I'm bragging. I'm awed by and so proud of this man.]

Back to fasting: I decided that I will record each day of this fast. I'm nearing the end of Day 2 right now so I'll do a quick run-down of what yesterday held. Yesterday was Sunday and Day 1 of my fast. I woke up feeling pretty good, went to church and throughout the day, I felt pretty good. I drank approximately 8-10 smoothie/juice bottles (only 100% juice for these 3 days) and had to take a brief nap before I went to work at the bar, but so far, so good. Later that night is when I about lost my mind. I guess it was because I was up so late, running around without making a bunch of money that made me grumpy, but I think it was lack of calories and caffeine withdrawl. I was definitely cranky and so glad to get home around 1am.

Today (Monday) is Day 2. Today is so much better than yesterday. I woke up at 11am (actually startled awake by a dream of dropping something frozen and the sound of it exploding--so weird and so interesting) and wanted to say the Morning Offering (a prayer), something that I haven't said in a very long time. I didn't even remember it, I had to look it up. I applied for a loan I need to get a business I want to start off the ground, talked to the person who is going to help me make it happen, read a lot of the book I'm into ("Lit" by Mary Karr--so good) and finally made it to my boyfriends house so we could run errands.

I had a glass of V-8 this morning along with water and green tea that my boyfriend got me for Christmas. I had water throughout the day but nothing else until about 7pm. We were in Target and I was running seriously low on calories. I started feeling lightheaded and remember thinking, well, if I faint, at least the boy is here to save me. Thankfully we made it back to his house before I had to suffer that embarrassment.

So here I am writing and listening to this beautiful boy bring wood and steel to life in a way that lifts up and sends my soul soaring with his music. We're going to a local coffee house that hosts an Open Mic night where hopefully the boy will treat everyone to his music. I'll be drinking green tea, a change from my usual 3 glasses (or more) of wine (which caused the last Open Mic we went to to end in a few tears from me...it was pretty ugly) and I'm actually looking forward to not drinking.

I don't expect the night to hold much more than that for us, so I'll call this a good day.