So What Have I Learned?

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippeans 4:9)

Well, today is the last day of the fast. I did not accomplish the food part of the fast, but I do not feel guilty about eating. Something that I only just remembered this minute is that during the last few fasts I pretty much just slept 8-9 hours a day (often a nap after work and then my official "sleep"). Those years it was like my body was saying "if you're not going to eat for strength, then you will sleep for it."

Well, this year was the reverse. I have had evening things almost every day, so there goes the nap, and I've been plagued with this absolute ennui in the afternoons, but a flurry of productivity from 9pm-midnight. Add that to getting up an hour early, and even though quite honestly I spent every day of it dozing to music before I came over here and started typing up my blog entry, it has still messed up my sleep something fierce. So, naturally my body has told me "if you're not going to sleep to be replenished, then you will eat."

I have been absolutely miserable for most of this fast. I suppose that is normal--perhaps I should even see that as a sign that I was doing it right, even though I don't feel that way at all. Did I really do anything special? Did I receive great revelation about who I am, and who God has created me to be? I just know that the most specific words came to me at the leader's retreat when we gave each other words, and by and large the message was "stop trying to be in control, and let God make you what He wants you to be."

So how do I do that?

What I have learned this last 3 weeks is that God does speak to us as often as we wish to hear it (more often really, we just aren't listening). Even on the days that I haven't known what I was going to blog about until I sat down and started looking up random words in the Bible, something has always struck me, and I have felt content with what I have written. I have even gotten a couple of comments from people who happened upon this blog and were blessed. I am so very glad for that. Writing is my passion, and Jesus is my savior, so to think that I could in some way mininster to someone by my writing... well that is a blessing.

So what's next for me?

Well, I do want to keep this up. I will not be forcing myself to get up an hour early on weekends though. Maybe Saturday. I don't want to give myself too much leeway here, because I don't want to lose this entirely, but I'm open to the idea of just spending a half hour at some point during the day doing this verse study thing. Perhaps I will suddenly find myself more refreshed tomorrow, but otherwise I have got to start getting more consecutive hours of sleep in a night.

Am I glad I did this sleep fast though? I am. I think it's been very helpful to me. Some days the only thing that got me through was remembering something I had read or written just that morning. So it has been a good time for me. Forgive me for not being more excited, it's just that the fast technically isn't over for me until I don't have to get up as early tomorrow. So hopefully tomorrow I'll be doing better.

But if you are reading this, stick with me. I will keep this up in some way, shape or form, even if I'm not getting up early in the morning to do it. :)