I mentioned fasting in my last entry. Last Fall, Mark 9:28 and 29 stood out to me and I felt led of the Lord to do some fasting. However, I was still nursing Faith and so I decided it was something I would study more on until I weaned the baby. Pastor Sarah loaned me a book called The 21 Day Fast by Bob Rodgers. I read it and several things on line, looking at scripture and asking a couple of doctors for advice as well. At the recommendation from something I read on-line, I decided to do a shorter fast prior to the 21 day fast. The week prior to Easter I fasted 7 days and was surprised at how "easy" it was. Don't get me wrong, it WASN'T easy but I thought I would have problems with blood sugar dropping, jitters, etc. That wasn't the case. However, I was weaker and hungry a lot of the time. This was a learning experience for me and I'm glad I did this as sort of a practice. I finally got to get some advice from Pastor Jeff Gregory who did a 40 day fast a few years ago. He really pushed me to stick to the original plan...meaning whatever the Lord told me to do...do it. If I planned to fast 7 days, don't stop at 5, etc. He also stressed writing everything down like, how long to fast, why I'm fasting, etc. AND the most important part and something I already knew but found it very hard to practice was staying in prayer and in the Word. "Whenever you would normally sit down to eat, you should, instead, spend that time in prayer," he said. Well, I knew that but I don't sit down to eat. I sit down to feed Grace and Faith while Landis and Hope feed themselves and I would normally grab my food standing in the kitchen (this is assuming Bobby isn't home when we eat - which is often) while I'm doing other things. This is still true now that I've started my longer fast but I will do my very best (which means I should get off of this computer) and believe in God's grace and faithfulness.

I thought yesterday that I should keep a blog of my journey in this fast and therefore have something to look back at and, obviously, this is public so maybe it will help someone else.