Yesterday, I fasted. I fasted for healing and for happiness. Fasting without a purpose is, to me, the stupidest thing in the world. But fasting with a purpose - whoa. It changes things. It changes you.
I started my fast yesterday with a prayer, to God. I asked Him for help with specific things that are cracking my heart and bending my spine, and then I asked Him to bless me to be happy yesterday. I said something like "Will you please just bless me to be happy today?" Sometimes you just need happy. I needed it yesterday.
People wonder if God loves them, or is aware of them, if He exists. I have wondered these things before; each of them. Yesterday I knew that God exists, loves me, and is aware of my life. Sometime between 8:30 and 10:30 I remember having the distinct thought "I'm happy. I asked Him to bless me with happiness and He did."
Fasting is clarity to me. I remember when I was a missionary fasting one Sunday in Kingwood, Texas. I felt clarity like I'd never felt it before. I don't remember what I was fasting for, I doubt it was "clarity" exactly, but I felt it in every part of me.
Sometimes, rationally, fasting doesn't make sense to me. Like, I'm not going to eat or drink and pray about my problems for a whole day, and you're going to turn around and make something manifest in my life that is unrelated to food and water? It doesn't seem to correlate. Does that make sense? That's when I remember that spiritual things always make sense. And someday I believe with all my heart I'll get it. Faith. That's faith. Trusting when it's dark. Trusting because other things have been dark, and then suddenly they weren't. Trusting that can happen again.
Something I learned in the last day or so. You will survive. You will live through this thing that you thought would completely destroy you. You can still function and be hurting. You can still get up every day and be broken all day long. You can still wake up and get out of bed. You can survive pain. Pain doesn't destroy you. You can live through it. I don't know how often I have faced that kind of pain in my life, really faced it and allowed it to run it's course. Not "fixed" it because in this case I can't.
So yesterday I was really happy at some point. And then I woke up this morning (why are mornings so hard? They are) and it was hurting again. And I almost gave in to it. I've given in to it for days and days previously. But this time I didn't. This time I came in to work. And I finished some projects and started others. This happens to be one of my projects for work. It's a writing exercise. Anyway, I am not giving in. I'm still here. This still hurts. But it honesty doesn't hurt as bad. And I feel hope again. That's another post for another time, but I'm starting to think that hope is necessary for happiness. Hope is what keeps us in the ring, keeps us swinging when our eyes are both swollen shut from being pummeled by life.
Easy times are coming. I have faith in that. I'm grateful for that hope. I'm grateful for the people that God gives to us. I'm grateful for fasting. Try it, if you want. Try fasting with a purpose. And watch how the Lord gives you what He can. He will give you everything that He can. He will because He loves you, he is aware of you, and He exists.
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