Fasting and Prayer

Yeah, not exactly easy to be diabetic and trying to do a fast.  But, I did make it through the day, having to finally eat something - so I limited it to something I particularly dislike.

When I was in college I reached a point where my income fell to $60 per month.  This happened to be exactly the amount of my apartment rent and so I was able not to live on the streets and for four months wrap up my education.  This also meant that I had NO other moneys, money in any form, and due to the economy in 1974 to 1975, there was no opportunity to even get work!  My tuition was covered under a grant but books I had to pay for myself.  So, I would write programs for local manufacturers, for incredibly low rates!, in order to pay for those books!

And of food?  Well, there was none during this time.  I had a box of crackers and would eat ten of them a day.  Not exactly a wonderful, well balanced diet, but it was what I had and I was thankful to God for it!  On the last month, I had to cut even the number of crackers in half in order to make it through the month!  I tried food stamps but it seems back then that if you were in school, it is assumed someone other than you is supporting you and you get nothing.  Six foot, five inches tall and I was down to 115 by then.  Yeah, the guy at the welfare office actually gave me some money from his pocket!  Tough times.

The starvation ended one afternoon when I went back to my apartment and there was a knock on the door.  It was my neighbor whom told me someone had dropped these four bags of groceries off during the day and he did not want them stolen.  What?!?!?!  I lived on prostitution row, you could not trust any of the other tenants with a dime much less a pile of groceries!  Talk about a God thing.....

No sooner had I put them away, with great prayers of thanksgiving, than there was another knock and two more bags of groceries appeared!  Talk about abundance!  But why?  It was decades before I found out the answers to that question.

So, every Monday since that afternoon, I have fasted - to remember God abundance, to remember what starvation was like, to thank God for His provision.  And then my health issues were diagnosed as diabetes.....

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And what of yesterday?  Yes, it was a horrible day.  My heart crushed by the pain inflicted by my family.  The looks of hatred and silent treatment continues.  But, God saw to it that my confusion concerning what to do was over, helped me find one of my old seminary professors to shoot an email to, and demonstrated that what I have been and am doing is right on with Him.

I also learned some new information on demonology I was not aware of.  I will have to consider more and deal with later.  Yeah, the world does not stop turning just because you entire family seems to be possessed at the moment!  Right now I have to prepare for tests this week in college and the next month will be super busy!  So family will have to suck it up for now until I am free to address their aberrations!  Please hold them up in prayer with me, until they can return to "normal"!

Unfortunately, for my family, I understand now where all of this going.  No, knowing that you will soon be a pariah is not exactly my idea of a fun future, but it does seem to be where God is pointing and they can come along or they can be comforted in their hatred for me.

Somehow I always expected that if you truly were walking the walk, talking the talk, being blameless before God and all men, that life would be a might easier because of it.....

Seeking His Will

How my heart weeps and mourns.  She does not understand, all she can hear is the voice of her own accusations.  Logic no longer prevails, everything is out of context, anger over rides everything.  The wrath of a ginger has befallen me. It has been one tirade after another all weekend long. Just as soon as everyone is gone, she attacks.  Honestly, I would rather have my skull split open with an axe than to go through the abuse being dished out.

Apparently, I am doing the right thing, only just doing everything wrong.  When I attempt to explain - I am mocked.  When I attempt defense - I am choosing a side that is not valid.  When I attempt to be gentle - I am being hateful.  When I refuse to back down - well that is the whole point, isn't it.

If I am to remain faithful to my God, I have a 40 year old vow I must keep.  If I am to remain faithful to my God, I must serve as I am told.  Even Gaelic Girl can agree that I am correct in this.  But, when I am willing to take a stand against those whom would attack my daughter, even if it is the entire family united against her, then I am just plain wrong, blinded, bewitched.

How could my family have so turned to evil - when miracles are literally occurring under this roof, weekly?  How can the changes in her life be so blinded from their view?  How ..... ?

So through the whole of the weekend my family has refused to be in the same room with daughter, and not me if daughter is anywhere near.  And this is my fault.  Their choice now becomes my choice and blame is placed on me for their refusal to any longer live as a family.

Sigh.....

So on Thursday I have a meeting set up with the pastor.  I have no idea what I am to say.  Would he understand that a man has been called to turn a young woman back to God?  Would he understand what it means to be given God's understanding of her?  Would he understand the horror with which one sees another's sin and heart?  Would he understand the damage done to a female when she does not have a father?  Would he understand the adoption process and bonding?  Can the term regression even have any meaning to him?  In my heart I know this is futility, yet I must seek council, but to what end?  .....

Yes, Kris is frustrated and Kris is hurting, and Kris feels betrayed and a host of other painful emotions - and Kris fears abandonment by those he loves.  Yet, I am strong because I know God has by back, I know He has equipped me to face the enemy - but the enemy has assumed the guise of my own family!

And I have a daughter's well being to consider.

Even though I am diabetic, I am going to be fasting tomorrow.  I must have clarity.  I must have spiritual strength.  I must be able to face the accuser, without damaging my family further.

Please be in prayer with me on Monday.  Success will be found, as long I can stand blameless before God in this matter.

Gratitude

Last time I talked about a fast I held for several decades.  Was this a result of discipleship or nature?  That is what I want to think about today.

After I became a Christian, I ended up in a Hutterite community for several years.  Certainly, this opportunity turned me from being the incredibly violent person I had been to a very convicted pacifist.  Equally, there must have been other changes in me because of my years with them.  I now had peace.  You have no idea the terror of living every minute in fear – because very dangerous men had decided you must die because you accidentally knew something you should not.  Was my gratitude to God for the miracle of living a month on only nine crackers a day, a result of the peace He had brought me?  Certainly, I had learned my existing from minute to the next was very much dependent upon God alone.

From my Danish great-uncle, whom I credit for whatever is good in me, I learned to view life very uniquely.  I learned to see life not as something we are controlled by but rather to respond to situations with thought.  He was a very wealthy man, but you would not have known it.  Wealth was something you used to help others with, wealth was a tool to better self and others with.  He never had to work a single minute after 1942 when he became wealthy, but he chose to buy a dairy and work at what has got to be one of the harder occupations in life!  Not to save money but because he knew it was good for a man to work.  As for God, he never once mentioned Him to me, maybe I was too young, but after his death I was to learn he had been an active member in the church as well.  Did he teach me Christian values without my knowing?  Gratitude being one of them?  I can definitely see that one!

The fast I observed was not a big deal.  No one knew of it, save for Una and later Gaelic Girl, and only then because we spent so much time together.  They thought it quaint (and perhaps I was a little demented?).  I did not run around whining about hunger or pretend I was better than anyone because of it, because it was something I chose to do to remember God’s miracle in my life.  If someone wanted to do something on that day, which would have involved food, I would reschedule with them – as I had other plans for that day.

So, understand, I judge no one based on my experiences in this area.  But, I do understand gratitude and God’s active hand in our lives.

Thus, when I read Isaiah 58:6-7, I understand intimately what God is saying to the Hebrew of that day, “You are failing me in your hearts!”.

They were fasting but not remembering why they were.  They were in fact, acting in exactly the opposite direction of what they should.  They were to be remembering hunger, yet they would not feed the hungry.  They were to be remembering their poverty and yet they would not clothe strangers – much less their own relatives!  They wore their fasting as a badge of honor – “Look at me!  I am doing the Fast!”  When it would have been so much better to have dealt with their hardness of heart.  They could not see that God was the one feeding them and clothing them.

They had no gratitude.  And very soon, they had nothing - for God took away from them all they thought they had earned by their own hand…..

Doing A Fast

One of the miracles I saw in my early years as a Christian was due to a period of extreme poverty.  I reached a point where I had no money, nor means by which to attain any, in any form, at least legally.  And, I flat ran out of food.  Well, I did have a box of Saltine Crackers and half a bottle of ketchup.  So, I rationed myself to three crackers a meal, three times a day.  It was what I had, it was what I could do.  Not much of a diet.

Perhaps because of my discipleship or my nature, I continued to thank God for each and every cracker I had to eat.  I continued to try and find work in most any form but the economy was bad and lots of people were in as bad of shape as I.

When I reached my next to last meal of crackers, a month later, I knew God was still in control and was not real sure where tomorrow’s crackers would come from.  As I prayed, there was a knock at the door and my neighbor told me that some people had dropped off several bags of food.  What are the odds that this person would even tell me?  Wow!

I set about putting this miracle away in my kitchen when there was a second knock at the door.  Very odd, considering that the prior knock at the door had been the first one ever!  And now there were two?  With great curiosity, I answered the door to find no one there.  Just four bags of groceries sat there!

Now, I never had told anyone of my plight.  No one knew and yet I had now been given enough food to last several months!

As a form of thanking God, I decided I would fast one day a week, so that I would always remember God’s miracle in my life that day.  And, for many decades I was able to hold to this observance.  However, with age, so many medications require me to take them morning, noon and night – and with food.  It really broke my heart to no longer be able to observe my fast, but God understands that gratitude is in my  heart and mind, not in hunger…..

*****

It was years later I was in a Bible study and someone asked the question, “What is the strangest thing you have ever done?”  One of the guys there was my ex-boss and told about how he had felt lead to buy four bags of food and then deliver them to an apartment in Tacoma.  He had no idea whose apartment it was, or why the food was needed there, but he did it.  I never mentioned it was me.  But that was so cool, God even used him (we did not see eye to eye on anything!)…..

A decade later my grandmother told me that her husband and her had brought me several bags of groceries, “just because”.  Again, she had no idea I needed food, much less what my address was.  In fact, no one had my address.  Wow!  No idea how she figured out where I lived…..

So, that was the rest of the story.