I’ve learned a lot about the purpose of fasting over the last few days. It’s to depend on God for sustenance instead of food. I’ve been doing a good job on focusing on food (as usual) but after talking about fasting with my counsellor, I feel that my understanding of the practise of fasting has been refocused.
We were talking about various fasts and I commented how I didn’t understand how Jesus went out to the desert for forty days and nights and didn’t eat or drink anything as aren’t people supposed to die of starvation or dehydration after a few days? Especially if they’re out in the desert? He then told me a story of a priest in China who was imprisoned. He was led by God to fast – eat or drink nothing – for 80 days. By the end of the time, pretty much everyone in the prison had come to Christ. Wow. That’s really an example of the bread of life in action!
This kind of puts into perspective my first few days of this fast. I was SO HUNGRY the first day. And then the next day I had a “no food hangover” according to one of the people at CUPS. Wednesday (day 3), I just felt terrible – probably because I didn’t sleep very well due to dreams where I was being attacked. Plus, I assume that some toxins or something are being flushed out of me, so that contributes to the shoddy feelings.
I know that I needed to learn about how I need to focus on God for everything instead of finding solace and energy in food. This is especially important in the “project” I’ve been given to work on in the next three weeks. I mentioned how I wanted to find out what God wants me to do in the future during this fast, but after some contemplation, I think it’s more important that I validate my inner child and give her the voice that I have denied her all these years. From then, I think I will be able to move forward with God’s help in a healthier manner as a whole person. In my attempts to deal with this in the past, I have turned to food for comfort and strength, but during this fast I want to turn to God instead of chocolate or sugar for my strength and healing.
Regardless of my desire to not focus on food so much, I did promise to share what I have eaten. I was fairly stressed out about what I would be able to eat during the fast, but I feel a lot more at peace with it now that I’ve come to the realization that I don’t need to depend on food, only God. But, a promise is a promise, so here we go:
Breakfasts: I cooked up four servings of oatmeal cooked with berries. I then added bananas or more berries, raisins, cinnamon and nuts.
Day 1:
Lunch: Cashew and sweet potato soup with avocado adapted from the Clean Start cookbook.
Dinner: Version of Karina’s Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie – I didn’t add as much spice, or the squash, but I also added some sweet potato, collard greens (from this organic produce box thing we got from a Groupon), and chopped up onion. It was REALLY good!
Day 2:
Lunch: Leftover Shepherd’s Pie
Dinner: Version of Karina’s Quinoa and Sweet Potato stuffed cabbage rolls – these were okay. Since I couldn’t use any sweetener to balance out the sour and bitterness of the cabbage, sauce and collard greens I added, the flavours weren’t balanced, so it wasn’t as good as I would have hoped. I think something also gave me a headache, so that might have affected my opinion.
Day 3:
Lunch: Leftover cashew soup and cabbage rolls.
Dinner: Hummus with homemade crackers and veggies and steamed kale. I didn’t add any tahini to the hummus (as I didn’t think it was worth it to buy a whole jar for only needing a bit), and I used sunflower seeds instead of sesame seeds and added a bit of almond flour to thicken it up for the crackers.
One of the hardest things in making a bunch of food I don’t normally eat is the vast quantity of food I make. Normally that would be okay as we’ll eat leftovers for lunch, but when you have something like the cabbage rolls that neither Mr. Bean nor I liked, what do you do with the leftovers? I don’t want to waste food but I don’t want to have to eat it either! Lucky for me, Mr. Bean is willing to take one for the team and do something with the cabbage rolls that includes cheese and bacon, so I won’t have to throw them out. Yay!
What do you think about getting sustenance from God instead of food?
Thank you to everyone who sent me suggestions for recipes that I would be able to eat over the course of the fast. I’m going to look through them and pick some of my favourites when I do my meal planning tomorrow!
Without Adornment 