Sacred Gathering

Our church called a Sacred Gathering to start off this week. It is a time of fasting (2.5 days) along with corporate praise, worship and prayer each night. It has been fantastic. There is so much that I could share with you about what God has taught me but I'll leave you with some thoughts on fasting.

Truthfully, in the 16 years that I've been a Christian this is the first time that I've truly fasted. I've fasted a meal here and there but never really a whole day let alone 2.5! I was really, really nervous about it and wondered if I could really do it. It hasn't been easy, I like the party in my mouth that food provides (you're shocked, I know), but I've survived.

Yesterday was a really hard day for many reasons and I caught myself thinking of fasting as some form of punishment half way through it. I wanted to eat so badly but thought that if I did that I would be punished for breaking the fast or that others would look down upon me if they knew that I broke the fast so I didn't. God really convicted me of that thinking later though.

Fasting isn't a punishment, it's a way to get closer to God. It's CHOOSING to deny ourselves something we need to spend time with Someone we need more.

When I started looking at it that way yesterday, it made things a bit better.

So much more to say but I need to go. Like my friend Ashley said, just because I'm fasting doesn't mean I should forget to feed the kids. Oops!