A Time of Fasting

More grasshoppers, originally uploaded by Cielo Azul Images.

Today was a special day for Becca and me. We concluded something this morning that we had never done before. Together with our church, we started a 21 day fast to begin the new year, on new years day. Most of the church, us included, performed a "Daniel fast," meaning we only ate fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. The effects on our bodies were amazing. We were both surprised by the amount of energy we both had, and even the way we both felt and were able to think. It's not to say that is was easy, and oh boy did we miss our coffee. But, the amazing design of the body adapts and compensates quickly, and we were over our caffeine jitters in a few days. We also missed sweets something fierce, but the atmosphere that entered our family due to it's lack of sugar was nothing short of stunning. While our children didn't participate in all aspects of the fast with us, they did go almost entirely without sugar for 3 weeks. The change was obvious.

We learned a lot during this fast both on the spiritual and physical side of things. I don't think we will do something like this again soon, although we may make it a "tradition"every year to begin it this way. It was a good was to realize all the areas that "old man flesh" ruled our lives, and we beat him back with a big nasty stick, or banana...or something like that.