Daniel Fast BREAK!

Well, I took a (3-day) mini-break from my Daniel fast for this weekend because of a bridal shower out of town I went to and I didn't want to deal with food issues. Now that I'm back home, it's back to fasting! I had done 10 days before my break so that means I have 11 to go....up through June 2nd! The sad thing is, my stomach has felt so much better this weekend than it had those first ten days of the fast. So basically I have very little motivation to get back on it. I know that deep down I really want to finish it. I just never imagined it would be this hard.

Here we go again!

Daniel Fast

I am right in the middle of my study of the discipline of fasting. I have tried fasting over the years during lent dealing with both food (sweets and fried food) and non-food things (facebook, shopping). I decided to try the 21-day Daniel fast for this month. Food has always been an issue for me....I am definitely not overweight, but I do know that I do not have a healthy diet. My cholesterol is high and I have gained about 30 pounds since high school (15 since the end of college). Food also affects me emotionally as I tend to turn to food depending on my mood: if I'm happy, I may indulge in an extra dessert or if I'm sad I may turn to snacking on unhealthy items. I do feel like I place too much value on food. I wanted to take these 3 weeks to not only cleanse my body of unhealthy toxins, but also look at how my obsession with food affects my spiritual life.

For those of you who have not heard of it, the Daniel fast is a 21-day fast based on the account of Daniel in the Bible. (specifically Daniel 1 and 10). If you have not read the book of Daniel you should! It's one of my favorite books. I did a Beth Moore Bible study with my two best friends on it a few years ago and it was amazing. The book starts with King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon overtaking Judah. Daniel was one of the Israelites taken to the King to be educated. The King gave them portions of his own food and wine. Here are few excerpts from the book of Daniel:

"But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of eunuchs, and the chief of eunuchs said to Daniel, "I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than your youths who are of your won age? So you would endanger my head with the king." Then Daniel said to the steward who the chief of eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hannaiah, Misheal, ad Azariah, "Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetable to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see." So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days, it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youth who ate the king's food." (Daniel 1:8-15)

The 10th chapter of Daniel reveals him to have a vision:

"In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks." (Daniel 10:2-3)

From these two passages, we get the guidelines for the Daniel Fast:

1. Eat only fruits and vegetables (or things grown from the earth)

2. Only water to drink

3. No preservatives or sweeteners or breads

4. Lasts for three weeks or 21-days

(check out http://daniel-fast.com/index.html for more information!)

I have never done such an intense fast before so it has been an eye-opening experience. I am on day 6 and it has already been very, VERY hard. My body and mind have been fighting me. It is obvious to me that I am very addicted to sugar. It would be scary if it wasn't so funny! I literally had to argue with myself on Friday to not eat doughnuts in the teacher's lounge. I must have looked insane staring at this box of doughnuts, whispering under my breath (No one would know! NO! BE STRONG! Oh come on...you lasted 4 days, that's good enough....WALK AWAY KIM!)

I'll be honest up front, I will be breaking my fast a couple times due to end of year parties and a bridal shower I'm going to, but I am hoping to hold to it until May 31st otherwise. It will be an interesting 2 more weeks as the first week has been incredibly difficult. Please pray for my spiritual growth and that my focus be on seeking God, not merely surviving a "diet." I am hoping this fast will jump start me into a healthier lifestyle when it is over! :)

Pray, Pray and Pray!

April was devoted to learning more about prayer. I was pretty discouraged with myself in my lack of discipline in prayer. My goal was to pray for a specific person each day and unfortunately that didn't happen. However, I did begin to form a habit of praying each morning and I know I can continue to work on it until it becomes a natural part of my day. Foster encouraged me in his chapter on prayer saying "we should remember that God always meets us where we are and slowly moves us into deeper things." (p. 35) That made me smile. I have always desired for a deeper prayer life and always get discouraged when I get lazy. Instead of giving up I should celebrate the small steps and continue to move forward with God.

I really enjoyed this chapter and found it to be a very helpful one on my spiritual journey of reflection. Foster emphasizes that of all the spiritual disciplines, prayer "is the most central as it ushers us into perpetual communion withe the Father." (p.33) He describes how it is often discouraging when we think our prayers won't make a difference, but Foster states that the Bible teaches us the importance of prayer and how we are working together with God through prayer.

Also, "real prayer is something we learn." (p.36) Foster studied all the references of prayer in the gospels and found that he was "determined to learn to pray so [his] experiences conformed to the words of Jesus rather that try to make His words conform to [his] impoverished experience." (p.37) In addition to scripture, Foster sought advice from others who had deep prayer lives and began praying for others immediately even though he didn't feel like he was "perfect" at prayer. He goes on to say that "one of the most critical aspects in learning to pray for others is to et in contact with God so that his life and power can flow through us into others." (p.38)

Foster also warns not to make prayer too complicated. He writes that "Jesus taught us to come like children to a father. Openness, honesty and trust mark the communication of children with their father." (p. 38) Foster shared a few stories about children and prayer. I was really touched by the example of his friend who taught emotionally-handicapped children who felt God wanted him to pray for his students. He did not tell the children he was doing this, he simply did it as he worked in the room with them. If a child had a hard time or a meltdown, he would simply pray over the child silently. By the end of the year, most of his students returned to the general education classroom. (p.42-43) Working in a public school does not mean your faith and prayer life cannot exist in your classroom. I pray for my students, but I continue to ask God for discipline to do it more often.

The greatest lesson I took from this chapter is that "we must never wait until we feel like praying before we pray for others" (p.45). I hope to remember this lesson each day.

Since we are in a new month, it is time for a new discipline! Fasting is next! I will be praying over the next few days of what kind of fast (food or something else) God would like me to do.

Thanks for reading!

Lent is OVER!

Well, I survived 6 weeks without facebook. It was actually not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Honestly for most of it I didn't even notice. What I did notice was that I had a lot more free time, I read a lot more, and I got more done at work during planning time. Go figure. :) I did return to facebook today and even though it was awesome to take a break, I don't think I'll be getting rid of it completely anytime soon. I love staying in touch with people through it and seeing what everyone is up to! I'm glad to be back Facebook....but it's always nice to take a break from you every once in a while.

Shopping was a little bit harder to let go than facebook, but ultimately it was also very rewarding. I have not gone shopping yet, but I'm sure I will sometime this week. It was eye-opening to see how I was tempted to shop when I had free time or was bored. Plus, I saved more money, gave more money away and got rid of a lot of stuff without replacing it with more stuff. Having this fast from shopping helped me see the importance of thinking about what I spend my money on. I hope to continue this mindset as I go into stores asking myself: Do I really need this? or Can I get rid of something to replace this with?

While I was home visiting my parents this weekend, I was going through my old room and helping my mom get rid of things around her house. Fasting from facebook and shopping made me think about the "clutter" in my life both literally and figuratively. Every day I desire to have a more "simple" life that is focused on Jesus and not on "things." This Lenten season reaffirmed this desire and I hope it continues to grow.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! He is RISEN! :)

From Meditation to Prayer

Can anyone else NOT believe it is already April?? I can't. This school year is just flying by! My year through the spiritual disciplines is also flying by! I am halfway through my year of transformation! :) I feel like I've entered a little slump the past few months in keeping up with this blog, but I hoping to get back on track!

March was Meditation month and though I didn't practice meditation as much as I had hoped, I feel like I got a lot out of studying it and attempting to practice it. Meditation was always a mystery to me and I generally saw it as a mystical religious practice of intense concentration. It seemed to difficult for me to even attempt. And honestly, I didn't see it as a "Christian thing."

Foster addressed the difference of Eastern and Christian meditation by saying that "eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind." (p. 20) This encouraged me because the idea of clearing my mind completely seemed incredibly too difficult. I am constantly battling an over-thinking brain. However, even though my goal in meditation is to fill the mind, it doesn't mean fill it with worries and to-do lists. Foster describes Christian meditation as "the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word" (p.17) and "in meditation we are growing into...a familiar friendship with Jesus." (p.19) Foster also mentions attachment and detachment saying we must work at "the detachment from the confusion all around us in order to have a richer attachment to God." (p. 21) I am constantly striving to better hear God's voice. One of my greatest struggles is "blocking" God out except in times of great distress and worry. My attitude was If I'm doing OK, I don't really feel like praying. Practicing meditation would not only deepen my intimacy with God, but it would prepare me for those dark times of despair ahead of time instead of scrambling to the surface when I feel as if I'm drowning.

One of my goals in meditation was to really meditate on the relationships I share with people in my family, circle of friends and workplace. It was really interesting to take a step back and think about how and why I interact with others the way I do and to also step into their shoes and try to understand why and how they may act toward me. I think it's a great exercise in helping you treat others with kindness and patience when you otherwise might want to bite their head off! ;-)

April is Prayer month and I am hoping to work more on meditation along with prayer. I will go into more detail about what I have learned about prayer at the end of the month, but here are my goals:

1. Choose a person/couple to pray for intentionally each day of the week (ex. Pray for Bob on Sundays, Lisa on Mondays, Ken and Tina on Tuesdays, etc.) leaving Saturdays free to pray for someone I feel led to pray for. I have chosen my 6 people/couples and I will start on Sunday! I hope I can continue to do this after April. I am such a calendar/to-do list person and I think this will help me be more consistent in my intercessory prayer.

2. Practice "Flash prayers" more intentionally - praying for the needs of others as you notice them.

3. Write in my prayer/gratitude journal at least twice a week (I have been doing once a week, but it often turns into once a month! Trying to be better about that....)

As always, thanks for reading friends!

BB 11

BIG BEND TRIP 2011 (aka BB 11)

Since I can't get on facebook (I will still share my post through facebook...but don't worry, I won't get sucked in to looking around tee hee), I thought I'd share some photos of my Big Bend trip with Sarah on my blog. I am not a big camper, in fact, before college, I would have NEVER gone camping, but this was one of the best trips I have gone on. I had a fantastic time!

Our first hike (Window View) was 5.6 miles round trip! It led us to this beautiful view between two mountains. Below is the lovely Sarah posing at the view. How does she look so beautiful even after a long hike? Who knows! :)

The next day Sarah tricked...I mean encouraged me to push myself and do a 12.6 mile hike. We got up before sunrise and began our hike as the sun was coming up. Unlike the day before where we went down and then back up, this hike began going uphill. It was very steep and it was INCREDIBLY hard. I was way behind Sarah for most of it. I really tried to use this time to meditate and pray to God, but it was very hard as I was so focused on the pain and wanting to be done. Here is me and Sarah at the beginning of our hike, ready to go! I am so blessed to have her as a best friend. I cannot believe I got to spend the whole week with her. :) She is so wonderful and she pushes me to change and become a better person.

The 6 miles up to the South Rim were long and hard, but the view was DEFINITELY worth it (picture below). I couldn't believe I was still in Texas. It was amazing. God's creation is AMAZING! This picture doesn't do it justice. I wish we could have stayed up there longer, but there was still another 6 miles down to go. We made it back down in one piece, but BOY did I hurt everywhere. I still hurt a little now....but I guess no pain, no gain, right? :)

One of my favorite things about camping was waking up when (or before ) the sun rises and going to sleep when the sun sets. And boy, was the sky beautiful. This is a picture of a sun set our second night at Big Bend. I wish I could have captured what the night sky looked like: filled with stars that were bright and all over the place. It was breathtaking!

Hope you enjoyed the pics! I had a wonderful time and I am in even MORE awe of God's creation. What a marvelous Creator He is!

Goals for Meditation

March is the month of meditation! Boy, this is the perfect month to be focusing on that. I have half the month off because of Spring Break so I have plenty of time to push away my busy world and focus on God. I'm also going camping with my best friend next week so I will be pushing away even MORE of my busy world. :)

Here are my goals this month:

1. Meditate at least once a week on the scriptures I have memorized so far this year. Sarah and I have started memorizing 1-2 verses a month so I want to review them and meditate on them this month. My verses are 2 Timothy 1:7, Romans 8:26, Isaiah 40:31, Psalm 34:1, John 15:5

2. Meditate on God's creation - that's where the camping comes in. :)

3. Start the day with meditation . Once I go back to work, instead of being on the computer so much in the morning, I want to start my day with Bible reading and a short meditation. I'm giving up facebook for Lent so that should HELP a lot! :) The main thing I want to focus on in these meditations is CONFIDENCE. I have been feeling less confident in myself lately and I want to focus myself on my identity in Christ.

4. Meditate on people - pay attention to others and myself. I want to really think about how and why I treat others the way I do.

I'll let you know how it goes at the end of the month and what all I have learned from Foster. As always, thanks for reading!! :)