In which I go into depth about my experience with the Daniel Fast thus far and explain what I was talking about in Friday’s post.

But I didn’t expect it to be like this. I’m not sure what I expected. Fireworks? Some kind of spiritual transcendence, I suppose. The first week, I went through sugar withdrawal. I expected the caffeine withdrawal to be worse than it was, but I didn’t notice much of a headache. However, the second and third day I was exhausted from lack of sugar. My brain did not come with me to the grocery store, which made it a little difficult to find everything I needed. But that passed in time. My brain caught up to me again and every time I craved a cookie or a cup of coffee, I reminded myself that this was only for a season. Honestly, though, I wasn’t spending more time in prayer at first. So I would think, “I just need to press in closer to the Lord” and feel guilty at the same time because I knew I wasn’t doing it. I finally started to. I got up early and sat before the Lord. Pursuing His presence simply for the sake of His presence.

And back down to earth now (where we always land at some point) . . . I kept wondering when I was going to start feeling super healthy. Everyone told me how great the Daniel Fast made their bodies feel, after the first few days. Not me. I don’t want to pat myself on the back or anything, because I know the other people doing this fast normally eat a pretty healthy diet, but I feel healthy most of the time. I don’t eat a lot of junk. We eat mostly whole foods at our house. I know I spend a lot of words on this blog writing about coffee and chocolate, but they don’t make up the majority of my diet—and I guess my philosophy is “everything in moderation”. Perhaps I’m so healthy already that the Daniel Fast couldn’t make me feel any healthier!

Yes, that is actually what I was thinking heading into week two. I was thoroughly disappointed in my experience. No fireworks. No transcendence. But that was not the low point. I came down with a horrible cold and I really started feeling sorry for myself. (I explained in my last post that I am a baby when I’m sick.) Here I was feeling awful like my head was going to explode, drinking Yogi Cold Season Tea with nothing added, and I was supposed to be feeling extremely healthy! I was very put out. Nothing was coming together for me. I couldn’t seem to make any headway on my goals and plans for the New Year.

Last Wednesday night, even though my body wanted to stay home and go to bed, my spirit needed to be fed. Our church had not had Wednesday night activities (as we call them) for an inexcusably long time. I needed Blueprints! As I write these words I am realizing how literally true that sentence is. “Blueprints” is the name of the Young Adult Bible Study that meets on Wednesday nights at our church. And I cannot avoid explaining here that the term “Young Adult” is used very loosely in this case. Blueprints is a place for those just out of college to come and sit and listen and learn and participate and not leave until they’re maybe 40-ish . . . or so. Yeah, we’d definitely kick you out at 50, but not before. Really, you ought to have blueprints by the time you’re 50. The house should be pretty much built by then anyway.

Moving right along. At Blueprints, nobody else seemed to feel defeated the way I did. In fact, they were all excited about the New Year! They were saying that “Acceleration” was the buzzword and things were just falling into place and everything was happening so much faster than they expected.

I was not feeling it, friends.

I know this is a little bit of a rehash of my last post, but I feel the need to expand. As I was sitting there wishing for this “acceleration” to happen in my life, I felt God speaking to me ever so gently, as He always does. Acceleration is there for the taking. You can reach out and grab it. You just have to claim it.

I’m not a big fan of “name it and claim it” religion. Sometimes things just don’t happen and we won’t know why this side of Glory. But the word acceleration has a lot to do with my own actions. I can sit around feeling sorry for myself (which is okay sometimes, I guess, especially if I have a bad cold) or I can get up off my butt and clean up the house. I can mindlessly browse Facebook or I can close that tab and write a blog post.

So Thursday morning I got up early again and I decided to claim it. Things are going to happen this year. To a certain extent it’s up to me. And the rest I’ll leave in God’s faithful hands.