Fast: Week 1

We've all fasted before.
 When I was a kid I just did it because I was told to.
When I was in ministry school I did it because I was told to.
When my church did it last year I lasted for 1 week.
A fast isn't a fast unless you personally feel God is asking you to do it.
God will tell you what to give up.
This isnt a diet.
In fact, many of the fasts God tells me to do don't even involve food.
Last week in prayer, God asked me to embark on a fast, or what I call a spiritual walk with God.
He specifically told me to "Simplify Britney."
I have so far given up Facebook, Twitter, and the internet in general when it's not required for school.
That seemed like a lot to me. I was constantly on facebook, checking people's status' and if they liked mine.
Facebook gives some sort of strange social high that I now see as highly unhealthy.
Then, God asked me to fast secular music...which was one I argued with Him on.
I run constantly, and the majority of the music I run to is upbeat and secular to keep me going and keep me going fast.
God told me not all secular music is unhealthy, but some of the trash I was feeding my spirit without even realizing it was TOXIC.
I would have songs to run to and not really listen to the words, just run to the beat. But, just like He said, I knew every word to those songs unknowingly...and it was complete garbage I was feeding into my spirit.
It's hard not listening to secular radio stations when the only Christian ones are highly cheesy and quite frankly the music is LAME.
 Am I allowed to say that?
When did becoming a Christian mean you lose your real sense of humor? Corny crap.
I feel cut off at this point in my fast. I keep asking God, "When is this going to be over? Am I done yet?"
I feel God won't release me from this fast until I finally go with it, and stop complaining about it every day.
Each week I feel it will get better, and I'll go through a different emotion. It seems contradictory that a fast would make someone feel lonely and depressed...but it's true. When you're so used to being socially active constantly through out the day and then you're suddenly cut off, you feel left out and lost.
I was used to posting my thoughts and what I was doing and where I was at and who with constantly. Who is listening to my thoughts NOW? Who am I going to tell what I'm doing?!
God said, "Now you're forced to tell ME your thoughts."
So here I am, writing in a red leather journal to my God that I can not see...all my intimate thoughts.
Many times I would be doing my own thing and God would tug on my heart and urge me to go somewhere private and journal to Him.
This first week me and God are having a rough time. I'm lonely and I feel so apart from the world right now.
I've grumbled and cried a lot about how annoyed I am that I feel this way and I dont understand why He would ask me to give up all this stuff if it was going to make me feel WORSE than before I started fasting.
Sometimes God wants you cut off, because that's the only way He can get your attention and just have YOU.
When all you have is Him, and the only person you have to vent to is God, your eyes are opened to a lot of what's wrong with you.
Tough love, right?
But necessary.
When I express my problems and complaints to God instead of Facebook or my friends, often times I realize how petty and ridiculous I really do sound.
And instead of "likes" or "comments," God will tell me to be quiet and show me that I am not reacting in wisdom.
I'm not through with week one of my fast just yet, but I've already learned so much about myself and God has pointed out many things in my heart that are not right.
God showed me that often times I am lazy in my work. I do not do my job to the best of my ability. Even when I have to clean a toilet, I should do it to the best of my ability.
I should do everything, no matter how small, with excellence.
Each day I ask God to show me something that day that I need to improve on.
He doesn't take it easy on me either. He has been very thorough in showing me what my heart really looks like.
It's a serious mess. It's been holding on to so much bitterness. It judges more than loves.
I've had to apologize to people God told me to...when I didn't understand, because in my mind THEY were the ones that should be apologizing to ME!
I will pray for an enemy in the morning that I havent seen in 4 years and I'll see them at the grocery store 2 hours later.
Talk about divine appointment.
These first few weeks I know will be rough. God is getting all the junk out slowly and painfully...and I'm fighting the whole way.
I'm going through the fire of refinement before God can polish me.
He's melting away all the gross stuff that's been piled on that I've grown to be comfortable in.
I have become desensitized to my own sin.
What a dangerous place to be for a Christian...wow.
As long as my sin wasnt as bad as "his or her" sin...I was okay in my mind.
Why God chose this specific time in life to do this fast, I don't know.
He does.
Yesterday I went for a run in the woods. I felt like an idiot, running and crying. I just felt so dissected from everyone.
Finally, God stopped me. I leaned against a tree and God wrapped His arms around me.
I felt the first hint of peace since I started my fast.
I looked up in the trees and I was reminded of the little girl I had grown so close to in Caracas so many summers ago.
I could still hear her laugh when I tried to make myself swallow the fruit she handed me off that foreign tree.
My porcelain fingers intwined with her dark ones...skipping with my hair frizzy and no make up on. I didnt care.
I scuffed my running shoes along in the dirt, remembering how dirty I would be by the end of the day after playing with the children in the orphanage all day.
In 2008 at the ministry school I attended, I was awoken one night late with a vivid and confusing dream. I remember telling matt about it the next morning...still in a trance. I saw myself standing in the dry dirt, curls messy and thrown into a braid, holding the hand of a small dark skinned child...just beaming with joy. In the dream I never said anything, I just stood there smiling and holding this boys hand.
I didn't understand. And I never had the dream again.
What did this mean?
Why did God stop me on my run for these memories?
I sat in the dirt in the woods yesterday, getting all my clothes wet.
I prayed.
I begged God if this was it.
Was He calling me to missions?
God then reminded me of the calling to missions he placed on my life at such a young age, so long ago.
"Have you forgotten the dream I placed on your heart as a child?"
I had not forgotten. I had neglected it.
I was afraid. I'm the kind of girl that avoids airplanes and holds onto the door handle with a death grip when anyone else is driving.
I like being in control.
Surely God would not call a girl so full of fear and full of the need for control to give up home and familiarity for missions.
He would.
He did.
God called me to Caracas for the summer of 2013. This is no short trip. God has called me for the entire summer.
I'm afraid if I go God will call me to missions permanently.
I'm afraid if God called me to do missions in my first week of fasting, what other crazy stuff is He going to ask me to do as this continues?
It's week one.
I'm lonely. I'm afraid. I'm called.