Week of Fasting Hopes

In about two minutes I begin a week of fasting.  Every year Immanuel Fellowship has a week-long fast.  Sound impressive?  Well this is only the third year we have had this tradition.  But I hope it sticks.  It seems time every time I do a fast (even some of the silly, alternatives to all-out fasting) God really speaks to me and things happen.

At the risk of waxing nostalgic I can't help but think of the spring semester when Jacque and I fasted every Friday.  I was 23 and feeling like a huge, broken mess.  Failure may have been a better word for what I felt.  Ruined?  Unfixable?  You get the picture.  Every Friday all I prayed was, "God do whatever You want in me, whenever You want to do it.  If You want to do noting and leave me as I am, that's okay.  If You want to change things about me that I am uncomfortable with, that's okay.  What You do is up to You.  Only please, please, let Your hand be free to work in my heart."  As the year progressed, I also asked God to have a free hand to discipline me if that's what it took to keep me from sinning against Him and dishonoring His name.  I now look back on that year as one that went from being very dangerous to very life-changing for good.

I had a boyfriend for a little while that year.  I dated him because I needed attention, and because I thought I couldn't do any better.  (Bad Jennifer, bad.)  He wanted to marry me and would talk about having kids and such.  At the time I thought all my dreams of ever being a missionary were over so there was a minute where I actually wondered if I should just go ahead with that guy.  I thought maybe I didn't matter anymore because I was a mess.  God really helped me see that He had other plans (and that anyway I'd be much happier single than with that guy).  I can't count how many times I've looked back on this situation with a heart full of thanks that I got out of that relationship. 

Later that year I ended up joining the MDS, or Missional Discipleship School, that my church did and moved to Mexico City on a church-planting team.  It was like my life began a new chapter the week I started that school.  God quickly pulled me out of a rut I'd been in for years.  Beginning then, and continuing till now I've been growing so fast spiritually that it makes me dizzy.  I feel like God's done so much in my heart I can't keep up.  So many things that I thought would never, could never heal in me are now problems of the past or dim shadows of the struggle they once were.  When I remember where I was four years ago, and remember how hopeless I was that I could change, I feel so amazed at God.  His redemption is more powerful than we think.

Hmmm....  I meant to write my hopes for this week of fasting, but my train of thought ran away with me.  Whenever I think of fasting, I remember that year, the prayers I was praying, and God's protection and faithfulness to work in me.  It always makes me excited to fast and see what God will do next.