This is day number 5. Only 16 more days to go on this water only fast. It’s more difficult than I imagined it would be. I am telling myself that someday I will look back on this and it will just be a memory. I felt the Lord ask me to fast for three weeks. I am not sure why, and at the time I was like, “UH! NO WAY!” After several months and the gnawing in my heart didn’t disappear I decided it would be best to have a go at it. My first attempt I fasted only food and allowed myself hot cocoa. I lasted 2 days. I tried again. Still never making it to the finish line…not even close, at 3 days. After that I gave up. I felt like a failure. I couldn’t do it.
One day, my husband, Tim, came to me with a proposition. “Let’s fast. For your dad.” My dad had several strokes in December of 2009. At that moment a very unpleasant scenario unfolded before our eyes. He was visiting family in a remote part of Alaska when the first one struck him. Loss of eyesight to one eye. No one knew what it was. He thought he’d over exerted himself that day and he just needed some rest. After the second one he needed help to get down the stairs. Loss of limb control in his left side. They were then certain going to the doctor to find out what was happening was a good idea. While waiting in a small room at a clinic where no one has clearance to do ANYTHING, he had his third stroke. He was unresponsive and when he came too he could no longer speak or move his right side. At the time he was 68 years old and very fit for his age. His irregular heart beat, so they say, is what caused it… plus he didn’t take his BP meds. He didn’t want to have to rely on them to keep his health.
After many months of tears and therapy he is in his own house with his own wife taking care of him. He hates it. But it’s better than a nursing home. He can walk with a cane but has to be watched constantly because falling is a giant concern.
Thankfully he didn’t lose any memories, just speech. He talks to us but it comes out in a jumble and we have to make sense of it. “What.” seems to be his favorite word for everything. The name for this is Expressive Aphasia. My youngest daughter is turning 2 the end of August and she talks better than him. It breaks my heart to see that and I think it disturbs my dad too.
When Tim came to me with this request, I was certain it was from God because of what I had felt earlier. I said, “Yes. Till he’s healed and restored or we die.” We started on a Monday. Tim went to work (construction work – in the hot sun) with nothing but water. By the second day he was feeling too weak to do much but sleep. I felt uncomfortable but fine. I was not in the hot sun. I was home taking care of our five children. On the third day Tim was reporting seeing stars and extreme pain in his legs. I couldn’t watch it happen any longer. I made him dinner that night and we both broke our fast. Three stinkin’ days. I was ready to give up for good. I couldn’t make it past three days. That Sunday we went to church and our pastor preached on “The Heroes of the Bible”. He started this Sunday with Abraham and Isaac. To come to the point, Isaac didn’t even know he was the sacrifice until the last moment and he could have fought off his father when it came time to tie him up and lay him on the alter, BUT HE DIDN’T. He trusted. That is were I felt the most conviction that I’ve ever felt in a long time. I was whipping out my Kung Fu when God was asking to tie me up and lay me on the alter. I had said, “NO WAY!” I had fought him. But now… Now it is time to trust. Like Isaac. I repented of my struggling. After all didn’t Jesus DIE for me? What is giving up three weeks of food compared to that?
I started again. Monday I gave up food cold turkey (I’m a food junkie). I am on a water diet for three weeks. Water has a very unpleasant taste now. I had mentioned to Tim that I just couldn’t drink our water because it smelled like a wet dog! He suggested a case of bottled water. I bought Aquafina. (If you ever try fasting on a water diet only, please check your water bottle brand. Aquafina doesn’t have any minerals or salts in it and by drinking only that, I washed all the electrolytes out of my body with nothing to replace it – dehydrated myself with water) The first day it was good. Actually just better than our tap water. Now that that’s all I’ve had for five days I want variety! My close family that know about this have suggested a little lemon in the water. What could be so bad about that, right? I can’t. I have to do this. I have to pass this test. There will be no lemon in my water. NO herbal teas. No matter what. I can’t do that. This is serious to me. No more,
“Oh, well, hot cocoa is okay.”
Or, “It’s just tea! You HAVE to keep up your strength!”
No. I’ve done it that way and have given up before a week has gone by. That is not a route I’ll take again. At least, not for this fast. This is a reason too important for me to screw it up by being weak.
My vision is to see my dad restored. Walking and talking as before. Coming to my house to “visit” and just “happening” to notice my garbage needs to be taken out, and well, he might as well do it!! Because he loves me. I see him feeling like he was twenty again. A miracle taking place in my very own life. And in his.
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” Psalm 119:71
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