Everyday Ordinary Dawnings

Into the Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:01:00 +0000

She speaks to me in Spanish now, and there is no gracious way out of this predicament. I cannot respond to words I don't understand, and she can no longer find her English. She is blissfully unaware, and I pray Lord, give me a word, just one word I recognize that I might reply appropriately.

Is this what she does? Pray for a recognizable something to respond appropriately to, while she slips back into the pool of natal knowledge that was before the worldly connections were made in her brain? This world has become her womb in which to gestate until her birth into the next. All she knows from this world is liquefying into murky amniotic fluid that will carry her away from us. We her children cup our hands to collect it and gather it back to her in vain. It is slipping through our fingers. And even floodgates of love cannot keep her from leaking and seeping away. She is leaving us: Noemi, my mother-in-law.

I want to be Ruth, but she has been so much more graceful in this than we her children. We panic, prompt her, quiz her, frantic for her to remember, as if we can will a thing into being so. We want to keep her and have her, and desperate love spurs us to actions that are unbecoming and do not honor her. What would honor her is the patience, acceptance, and assurance we are wont to muster but can't. She is leaving gracefully, and how can we be gracious in our being left?

I want to be a going away gift. But the gift is our not fighting that this is happening to her, and how on earth is that done by a child with fierce love for her mother? How does one lose for the sake of the one she loves?

Surely God knows something of this and will show us the way into the unknown.

So I help her find John in her bible, this woman who learned the books of the bible together with her ABCs as a girl. This woman who has read it cover to cover every year for fifty, who can no longer find the gospel according to John.

Her son, our pastor, says, "Turn with me to John chapter 10." All ninety-eight pounds of her, statuesque beauty, sit beside me. She flips pages and fiddles, trying not to need help, but neither can she will a thing into being.

I much prefer casting her bible off her lap and shaking her back to herself like an iPod in need of reorienting from landscape to portrait. Instead I gulp the cup of fear and heartbreak and insatiable desire to rescue her from her future. I swallow it all down, and dutifully find Evangelio según San Juan capitulo diez in the worn bible on her small lap.

She smiles demurely and averts her gaze, but I think I saw the longing for home on her face. I pat her hand, whisper, "It's fine."

Her eyes meet mine again, and she sees in me the truth, that I lie. We both so much want it to be true. We both know it is not. She doesn't say so for my sake, so I won't say so for hers. And the words that don't hang in the air between us are heavy anyway, the voice of her son, my husband, preaching God's word in the distance.

It is not fine; she can't find John, but she can't forget the truth of this. The irony hurts. We squeeze each other's hand with a last knowing glance, let go and look forward. Mother and daughter-in-law, sitting side by side, are left to our own devices, two brave faces turning together and alone into the unknown.

I'm exploring the practice of love with Ann this week, as part of her Walk With Him Wednesday community, and with Jennifer's God-Bumps and God-Incidences.

Doomed and Accursed

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:22:00 +0000

I'm reading Ann Lamott's Bird by Bird chapter by chapter in the evenings. I just finished the chapter about the doomed radio station. (Or should I say cursed radio station?) And instead of paying attention to the words on the page, I'm thinking can't she find less offensive words to communicate her point? She is, after all, a writer. The radio station is all the head noise you think and hear that distracts you from being able to focus on the story that's forming just under your conscious mind when you're writing. All that noise stops a writer from hearing the story and transcribing the narrative. It sabotages the writing process.

I've never noticed that I do this in my writing. (Maybe that's because mostly I write when I feel inspired, rather than with Mary DeMuth's BOC [butt on chair] technique. I apparently have been ignoring every other author giving writing advice to budding writers to write every day whether the muse shows up or not. You know them, those unimportant authors like Stephen King and Natalie Goldberg who were generous enough to give advice to people like me who largely ignore it.)

At any rate, I think I do fairly well with focus. In fact, I usually get perturbed — but don't fuss — at my kids for interrupting me with things like, "Hey, Mom, did you buy more apple juice this morning?" while they have their head in the fridge and are about to discover the answer all by themselves. They try to bait me with their fighting with one another, too. And don't even get me started on Adrian's rapping into a recording mic in the next room. Did you know it's impossible to rap quietly? It cannot be done.

Anyway, if I fussed, it would be even more of a distraction, so I ignore my own kids for the sake of writing. Instead, I stay true to my muse and keep my BOC and write on. So I'm feeling OK on this one. (The writer is OK; the parent clearly is not.) So I conclude that I haven't had much trouble with the radio station in my head.

Until now.

Until now, I wasn't even aware that there was a radio station, much less a doomed one. I think I was already doing a pretty good job of tuning it out, at least while I was writing. And now I can't even do it while I'm reading, much less writing.

I make the assumption mid-chapter that Ms. Lamott is trying to teach people like me techniques for recognizing the noise that's keeping us from hearing the storyteller within so we can stop the madness. Instead, what I'm learning is how to hear it.

I'm reading her pretend scenario that starts with a perfect writing morning that clicks right along splendidly for about 3 and a half minutes, then gets totally off track with a random thought of so-and-so writer who stinks but just went to print and is starting a whirlwind book tour. That thought leads to wondering what would it be like to be interviewed on the Tonight Show anyway?, which obviously leads to what am I going to eat for lunch because I don't fit in any of my cute clothes that would be appropriate for an interview like that -- a burger's totally out. And what was wrong with Mom the last time we had lunch anyway?

And the whole time I'm reading about techniques to stop this madness like animal sacrifices (I think she was kidding) and breathing techniques and putting your brain in the corner for a time out for wandering, I'm thinking how is she staying focused on her writing while she's trying to be a good transcriber of the story which is of the doomed and accursed radio station playing that would thwart good writing in every other instance? In her story the accursed radio station is the hero! How can the real story be about what happens to subvert the real story? And she's writing it well, by the way, because I'm totally getting it, and my head is about to explode like dynamite whose fuse has been lit, and it's too late. My only hope is that the explosion will unearth a gold mine, but it probably won't.

I understand about the cursed radio station now, thank you very much. I'm a good learner, Ms. Lamott, and you are a very effective teacher. But I think something went wrong, terribly wrong. I think I've turned on the doomed radio station and cursed my writer within.

Pressed

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

I'm over at Laced With Grace today telling the story that goes along with this cutie
and the iThing that's at the other end of those white wires.

It's also the story of Isreal's shattered dreams

and what we can do when we feel pressed.

Skate on over, won't you?

Daniel Fast Day 21 :: Beyond

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:31:00 +0000

Well, this is it.

Tomorrow there are no more Daniel Fast restrictions.

It's like the training wheels are coming off

so I can fly like the wind.

I'm afraid of no more boundaries.

I lived in bondage for over a decade without them.

I really don't care to go back there. Ever again.

But training wheels only hold us back once we've learned balance.

I can't trade one cruch for another.

So tomorrow will be Day 22 and Day 1 at the same time.

My standard will remain the same:

~Remember what God called me to.

~Do it in his power and for his glory.

~Go slow, last long, and be strong.

~And don't worry--

He'll hold me together.

For I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. ~Paul

Daniel Fast Day 20 :: Now

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:23:00 +0000

I wish I were already there. On the other side of having lost the weight and conquered the monster. I want to have closed the gap between liking-the-way-I-feel-when-I-exercise and liking-to-exercise, and to have closed the distance between the now and the up ahead.

I think about the six pounds I've lost since the beginning of 2012 and I think about the fact that I'm really still at the beginning of all this. The six pounds and one month are decidedly the underdog facing the rest of my life — a long, long time I hope.

I think it's going to take about six months to change the ways that I think about diet and exercise. Six months of getting stronger, slimming down, and eating by a healthful standard should give me more than the shred of victory I have today to face forever with a more respectable measure of confidence. So I don't really want to be here; I'd much rather be there. I look at "there" so far off and feel discouraged, and then I think I've got to stop all this thinking!

There's something about being in the now, and being okay with that, that I've got to find. Anne Lamott wrote, "I am trying to learn to stay in the now — not the last now, not the next now; this now."

Early last Saturday, Mike and I walked the old path through our neighborhood to the elementary school and voted in the South Carolina presidential primary. We used to walk it every morning when our daughters shouldered colorful book bags that made little girls look even smaller. We'd kiss them goodbye at the glass back door of the school and hold hands on the walk home. I remembered my many complaints that the morning misty air frizzed my hair, undoing my fifteen minute blow dry and flat ironing sessions. I smiled and asked Mike, "Why did it seem so ordinary back then? How come I didn't know that each one of those mornings was amazing? It's so very obvious now."

So I will stand today, with 24 more hours of our fast and who knows how many days until forever, and see right now for what it is: obviously amazing.

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond
Day 9 : Interruption
Day 10 :: Prayer
Day 11 :: Answer

Day 19 :: Grace

Daniel Fast Day 19 :: Grace

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:24:00 +0000

I live life with blinders. Sometimes I unwittingly slip back into thinking it's all about me. I don't mean to — I know better — but it's our default. We are egocentric from the womb.

For two months now, we've been picking up one of Reagan's girlfriends for church. They're bus friends, not school friends, because they ride the same bus, but don't have a single class together. If it wasn't for that bus, they might not even know one another.

You see, Reagan has a brother who can drive her to school. She could sleep later, get there faster, and generally receive more middle school clout for being a car rider. But Reagan chooses the bus, because she chooses her friend.

And then Grace started going to church with us, and I thought what a great thing we are doing. A good deed for God with Mom giving Reagan all the credit.

Then last night Grace handed Reagan a letter that her great-grandmother had written her. Reagan told me it was a little bit about her and began to read:

Dear Grace,
I received your letter yesterday and you can't imagine how happy it made me. I feel that it was the best Christmas present ever. I've been praying that you would meet a girlfriend who would invite you to church, and my prayer has been answered. ...

Leave it to God to use a sweet little great-grandmother's love for her girl to put me back in my rightful place. It's always God who is front and center, whose deeds get proclaimed and give him great renown.

Only God woos a girl unto himself, uses a girlfriend in the process, answers a grandmother's heart cry, and gently reminds another of his daughters all at once. God loves his girls. And I tear the blinders off, and see only his grace.

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond
Day 9 : Interruption
Day 10 :: Prayer
Day 11 :: Answer

Daniel Fast Day 18 :: Strong

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Part of this living healthier means moving. I've noticed that the brain and the body want to coast on the downhill side. This is another impulse I must resist in order to reap a greater reward later. Because sometimes the glory days happen in the golden years.

There's Abraham and Sarah who didn't have their promise crawling through their living room until they'd waited a full century. Noah built a testament to years of faith that buoyed him above the wet destruction. A grey-haired Moses moved an obstinate nation of people. Samson found his strength one last time as a broken and defeated has-been. Widow Ruth, who should have been a grandmother by now, traveled internationally in search of a kinsman-redeemer. So many did their greatest exploits in their latter years. Anna kept vigil at the temple, awaiting the day she would set eyes on the Messiah. Did they begin to think her senile? Surely she had days of doubt.

Surely they all did.

But none of them gave up hope. They plodded onward, relentless in their lifelong pursuit of God and his goodness. They held fast their faithfulness, and God was able to use them for his glory in their latter days.

None of these figures coasted downhill. They resisted that temptation and pedaled their faith forward.

I want to be ready, available, prepared to do great exploits for Him. It will take a sharp mind and a strong body, so I will continue to lift my weights. Not because I think I'm a Moses or a Abraham, but just in case there's an off chance God might choose me someday to do his heavy lifting.

I hold fast to your statutes, LORD;
do not let me be put to shame.

Psalm 119:31

Daniel Fast Day 17 :: Impulses

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:12:00 +0000

Who knew that being smart meant more than a high IQ. According to David Brooks in Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, learning impulse control is a better indicator than IQ for a host of success measures:

fewer behavior problems
better social skills
higher SAT scores
higher rate of college completion
greater incomes

All these and more can be yours if you learn impulse control mechanisms early in life.

The scientific testing began with a few kindergartners plus a marshmallow minus the adult supervision. They told the kiddos that if they didn't eat the marshmallow when the adult left the room for awhile, they could have the marshmallow and even more when they returned. Then the psychologists left the room to observe little kids left to their temptation by sweet confections.

The scientists chose tasty food to test for impulse control — it is the barometer of all barometers. Isn't that what they tell us not to reward ourselves with? Is there a celebration on planet Earth without it? Even the heavenly celebrations we know about will include a banquet.

Food is a powerful thing.

Satan tempted Eve with it. Jesus, too, come to think of it. Esau sold his birthright for it. And Herod was mortified when his daughter-in-law chose the head of John the Baptist instead of it. It never occurred to him that she might want something other than delicious delicacies atop her silver platter. Food is the pleasure of all pleasures. Those in powerful positions know it, and those with little impulse control find it out soon enough.

But mastering our impulses is also a powerful thing. Especially considering Christians have the resident Holy Spirit to enable us. Especially when part of his fruit is self-control. (And we are not supposed to eat this one either, we're supposed to produce it.)

The sociological model for impulse control involves three components: perception of a given situation, calculation of a strategy (reason), and the execution of the strategy (will power). Social models of the past have emphasized the second stage, but failed to adequately teach impulse control. Then the third phase, will power, was encouraged, and that, too, fell flat. Specialists now know that the crucial stage is the perception stage for there to be successful and consistent impulse control.

Seeing a situation rightly sets us up for success. It allows us to engage and strengthen our reasoning regarding the situation (stage 2) and the will-power to act on the truth (stage 3).

God was exasperated with Israel over this very thing:

Son of man, you live in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house. (Ezekiel 12:2)

This was among God's charges against Israel when he sent them into exile in Babylon, the very circumstances in which Daniel found himself. And what did Daniel do? He chose to deny himself the king's choice foods. The young Jewish boy passed on the marshmallow.

Perhaps Daniel heeded the word of the Lord and began to see things as God saw them. Perhaps Daniel was exercising impulse control that started by rightly perceiving the potential power food can hold over us. Perhaps for Daniel — and me — seeing it any other way would have been rebellion against God.

I am convinced the smartest thing for me to do is start passing on the marshmallows as a way of life.

Day 12 :: Commune

Day 13 :: Friends

Day 14 :: Perfect

Day 15 :: Taste
Day 16 :: Control

Daniel Fast Day 16 :: Control

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:33:00 +0000

I've been reading a book as part of The High Calling's book club called The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement by David Brooks.

This book uses fictional characters as a tool to invite those who are otherwise uninterested or scared off into the world of sociology as it addresses the sub conscience and its influence and effect on the development of the human psyche. (Can you see the need for a human face and a sense of a real person to wrap yourself around in order to slog through the social science here?)

The discussion on culture and upbringing has given me a sense of déjà vu. I have experienced cultural differences aplenty in the marital blending of my own middle-class American heritage with that of my first generation Cuban-American husband. I've not articulated so thoroughly the minefield those cultural norms have been to us, but I recognized them for the old nemeses they are when Erika chooses college and, in so doing, goes against the family norms and cultural expectations.

Although the book has been immensely fascinating, I've also found it depressing. All this time, I've thought I was volitionally in much more control of my life than is the case according to David Brooks and the fictitious Harold and Erika. We apparently are much more a product of our circumstances and culture than feels comfortable to this girl who rather likes feeling in control.

Brooks gives continuous evidence from scientific studies that the development of our personalities, character, perspectives, goals, expectations, desires, and many other components that make up the composite "us" are built soundly on the back of our unconscious learning as we navigate our circumstances and stimuli. My sense of control was beginning to melt and slip through my hands like a mirage in the desert.

Then along came chapter 8 on self-control. This chapter collided with my Daniel Fast and all God is doing to fortify a weak area in my life. The suspect timing of this intersection among God, my life issue, and this social study is not by chance. My spirit recognizes the author of this set-up as God Himself. He is reminding me that I am more than a science experiment in a social petrie dish. And although there is much to be gleaned from understanding how and why we develop into the people we become, God will not be marginalized. I can study who I am and how I got this way on the one hand, and invite in the God who created it all (and can fix it all) on the other hand and be so full, it takes both hands to take it in.

Never have I felt so full on a Daniel Fast before.

{I invite you to come back for tomorrow's Daniel Fast reflection, as I will continue my discussion of Brook's chapter on self control.}

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond
Day 9 : Interruption
Day 10 :: Prayer
Day 11 :: Answer

Day 12 :: Commune

Day 13 :: Friends

Day 14 :: Perfect

Day 15 :: Taste

Daniel Fast Day 15 :: Taste

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:21:00 +0000

Coffee is one of the things I do every day. It's right up there with brushing my teeth and sleeping. I do these things every day. I don't eat apples every day. I don't even cook supper every day. But I never miss my morning cup. Never. (Not even on my Daniel Fast—I know.)

But I didn't like coffee for he first thirty years of my life. In fact, when I was a girl, I didn't want to grow up because grown ups drank coffee, and I didn't want to drink coffee—ever. Now I drink it daily and never tire of it.

How did this happen? How did something I dislike become something I not only like but do daily with such enjoyment? There has to be something to it more than just growing up.

It may seem silly, but I need to know, because I want diet and exercise to go the way of coffee in my life. I know in my head that healthy diet and exercise are good for me. I understand their benefit and the need to incorporate them into my daily living. But I'm the little girl who doesn't want to grow up when it comes to those two. When I try to drink the bitter cup, its a battle, a burden, and distasteful. Sort of like those first few cups of coffee I half-drank politely, under the pressure of social conformity.

Now that I think of it, the amount of cream and sugar was scandalous in those first timid cups. They were more like dessert than coffee in those steaming mugs. Now I take my coffee with no sugar, only cream, and every morning. Therein lies the strategy. A little social pressure, a little conformity, a little bit of sweetening things up to make them more palatable. Drink half cups and smile politely at your guests. Repeat as necessary until you're actually enjoying it.

These two new guests I'm reluctant to have become residents in my every day? I'm introducing them slowly, in small portions, sweetened up a bit too much at first. I know it's the right thing to do, so I cave under the pressureto conform and add a little more cream until my smile's not fake anymore.

Eventually, I'll be able to stomach them stronger and with less sugar, just like the coffee. They'll become old friends I look forward to when each day dawns anew.

I've tried fast and furious before and failed. This time I'm going the way of coffee: slow and sweet with a fake smile. These will be my concessions to secure success for a lifetime. Sometimes obedience is an acquired taste. I'm doing whatever it takes to acquire it.

The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom;

And with all your acquiring, get understanding.

Proverbs 4:7

Day 12 :: Commune

Day 13 :: Friends

Day 14 :: Perfect

Daniel Fast Day 14 :: Perfect

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:18:00 +0000

When we bring ourselves in our imperfections to God,

it is enough.

When we have been less than perfect

in our fasting for two weeks

and in our living of this whole life,

and we bring it to God,

it is enough.

Because we are His beloved.

It is enough

because His love is perfect.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,

do it all for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:13

Day 12 :: Commune

Day 13 :: Friends

Daniel Fast Day 13 :: Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Limits are funny things. They can either draw attention to the boundary and create an obsession with what is forbidden just on the other side of the line or they can mark out the territory that is safe and give us assurance and peace to move around freely within them. I tend to eat with no real boundaries, eating what and when I want with no thought for why or the ultimate result.

The Daniel fast always starts out for me as the former, but ends as the latter because it's a journey, one that plows land that has long lain fallow. What begins as hard earth is broken and ready for planting by the end.

Three weeks of restriction are a yoke I resist like any untamed animal. They are heavy and hindering at first. Time, she proves to be my friend while I endure the yoke of healthy food guidelines. She is not new to my circumstances, it's just that I have become acutely aware of her presence as I acclimate to wearing a yoke. Although I resent her a wee bit, she befriends and does not begrudge me. Time is patient, and she teaches me that my body feels good, better; that good decisions make me disciplined, stronger. Through her the yoke of restriction becomes a gift.

Through her, I become aware of unfarmed land with potential to produce a bountiful harvest should I embrace the yoke and my new friend, Time. They will help me do the hard work more efficiently. The burdens of restriction and time become tools for taming what has been wild within me.

Every other time, the Daniel Fast ends for me here. But this time, I intend to keep my new friends close, seed the new ground and reap a harvest. That is why we we wear the yoke and break up hard ground, is it not?

Daniel Fast Day 12 :: Commune

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:20:00 +0000

Something happens when people gather around a table filled with food and eat together. It's more than the time it takes. It's more than the physical proximity, the recipes followed and served, or the conversation that ensues.

Food is nothing less than sacrament. All food is given by God and is given as a means to sustain not just our bodies, but also our minds and our spirits. In all of its aspects—growth, harvest, preparation, and presentation—food is given as a primary means of drawing us into right relationship toward God, toward his creation and his people. Even its intentional absence, through fasting, pulls us toward a deeper dependence on God and one another. (Leslie Leyland Fields, editor, The Spirit of Food)

A meal is an experience that engages all the senses. We taste, we talk, we listen, we smell, we touch, and we will remember. And all this is mutual: mine overlapping yours. A shared meal is an avenue to communion, which is what our souls really crave.

Pregnant, I craved eggs and steak, my body calling for protein. And pregnant, I felt physical hunger that ran deeper than any hunger I had felt before, causing me to pray for starving, pregnant women in Africa who had no means of appeasing their own growing baby's need for sustenance. My heightened hunger had heightened my compassion.

And pregnant, there were foods that tasted better than they ever had or will again. That orange juice and those sugar cookies—oh, to taste those tastes so fully again.

Pregancy is hosting new life as it develops. It is a physical communion between two souls, one parent, one child, that enlivens sensations that were deadened or nonexistent before the communion. Food fuels the chemistry for life.

Fasting can do the same between one Father and one child, when we lay aside the physical food for the fasting chemistry of the spirit. He hungers to be our host. When we partake of this kind of communion, we fully taste, and we see that the Lord is good.

Let him lead me to the banquet hall,

And let his banner over me be love.

Song of Solomon 2:4

Daniel Fast Day 11 :: Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:27:00 +0000

The guest speaker's name was Thomas. He was friends with some of the guys in our college ministry. I shook his hand, welcomed him, and found a seat among the gathering group. It was a Wednesday night at 8:30, and I had unknowingly introduced myself to answered prayer.

I wish I could recount the testimony Thomas gave that night but I can't. I remember only one thing: that he had been sent to the Persian Gulf to fight a war four years earlier. Thomas was walking the desert sands of Kuwait while I was eating faith from a balcony on St. Charles. We were strangers at the time, two kids right where God had them in order to meet their respective needs. Mine was for peace in my heart. Thomas' was for salvation of his soul. And simultaneously, from different sides of the globe, I prayed prayers of protection and spared life at noon while Thomas placed a midnight faith in God for the first time.

My prayer had come face to face with its answer four years later. It was the only detail that mattered that Wednesday night.

So keep at it, whatever God is calling you to. There's a reason he has you were you are. He will use it for your good and for his good pleasure. All at once or after a long, slow path, whether you are hungry or filled, sacrificing or satisfied, full of faith or fear (or a measure of both), God will answer.

And it will satify you like no food ever did or could.

~ ~ ~

Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond
Day 9 :: Interruption
Day 10 :: Prayer

Daniel Fast Day 10 :: Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:36:00 +0000

It was August 1990 when the US had been at war for four days. It was my first memorable experience of living in a nation at war, and I was a wreck. I couldn't sleep for trying to wrap my brain around big ideas like front lines and casualties and bombs bursting in air. Those things were in that day's newspaper not just the history books anymore. The only way to gain some sense of control was to bring it all to God.

I began to fast every Monday, committed to prayer for our troops until the war ended. I didn't know a single active duty soldier, at least I was unaware of any. I was twenty, a newly-wed, and working on the tenth floor of Hibernia National Bank in downtown New Orleans. I typically sat in the break room with my brown bag because Mike was in seminary. We were starving college students still. There was a food court in the sky-scraper across the street with a lovely balcony overlooking St. Charles Street.

I headed there every Monday of the Persian Gulf War with no lunch, only my bible and prayer journal. Lunch consisted of words rather than food. They were words for others, not myself, and God ate my fears and unrest. He filled me.

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.

~John 4:34

~ ~ ~

Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond
Day 9 :: Interruption

Daniel Fast Day 9 :: Interruption

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:30:00 +0000

It's Noelle's birthday. Many years it falls in the midst of our Daniel Fast, just as it did when she turned 8. That year, I made an oreo cake, we invted frieds and family, and we celebrated. We will do the same tonight, with her choice of dinner menu, because life is precious and worthy of celebration.

There will be cake. When the party's over, we resume our fast.

Isn't that the way life is--unruly and imposing on our plans? Make room for that. It just might be exactly what God planned.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

~Ecclesiastes 3:1

~ ~ ~

Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond

Daniel Fast Day 8 :: Respond

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Easter 2005

The first time I ever fasted was in seventh grade. I did it completely on my own on Good Friday. How could I go to school like every other day and go to gym class and do Spanish homework and an art project for Mr. Hutch? It was the day Christendom commemorated the crucifixion. To move through a regular, ordinary day was all wrong to the dramatic, junior high school girl I was. Fasting was my way to observe, acknowledge, and attempt some sort of response.

There's not a lot to choose from. When I look at the cross I'm at a loss for words or deeds. I feel so undone and inadequate. I was then, and I still am thirty years later. But even at twelve, I knew I had to do something. In the face of God's extravagance towards man, doing nothing was not an option.

God of wonders tortured to death was an injustice to Jesus' righteousness. Engaging in my ordianry day would have been tragic to the same proportion. It would trample his grace. So I fasted to mourn his sacrifice and to feel my need of it. It was the beginning of a lifelong response to God and his grace.

~ ~ ~

Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise

Daniel Fast Day 7 :: Praise

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:28:00 +0000

Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;

no shadow of shame will darken their faces.

Psalm 34:5(NLT)

After a week of talking about my issues, I hope you feel inspired to take on your own,
whatever they may be or how ugly the battle.

You will end up free and full of praise at the other end.

And now I know you want to hear the whole song.

This is the live version, with all it's imperfection and passion.

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign

Day 4 :: Hunger

Day 5 :: Life

Day 6 :: Free

Daniel Fast Day 6 :: Free

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:30:00 +0000

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

~Daniel 1:8

Like Daniel, I am concerned with my sin against God, and having no control over my eating habits is indeed sin for me. Maybe it is for you, too? Some of these reflections may seem like this is all about my body, my weight, my image; but this is about my spirit. The core issue is obedience and desire to be holy. So these Daniel-like, self-imposed restrictions are going to have to last for a lifetime, not a mere 21 days. For me, this is not a fast, but a purge. I am purging from my lifestyle this being out of control. It must become again foreign to me.

I'd be lying if I said it was easy reflecting on a very private struggle. I am a pastor's wife and thus a leader by association, who some (in my real life) look to as an example and mentor. And honestly, my dress size isn't so large that it can't keep the little secret I'm divulging here—that I struggle with control over how I eat. I worry that in my candor I might be a stumbling block rather than the encourager I desire to be. But I decided to deal with it here—openly, finally—because I really do want God's victory, and I want to be the overcomer He intended me to be. And I hope you find the encouragement to do the same.

Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, so lack of it must be fruit from the king's table in this foreign land we call Earth. From this I must fast and be freed in order to be a stronger and healthier child of God.

So I ate a modest amount of tuna on Triscuits with my grapes at lunch today. Because they are healthy. And God is gaining control.

After ten days they looked healthier and stronger than the young men

who had been eating the king’s rich food.

~ Daniel 1:15

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign

Day 4 :: Hunger

Day 5 :: Life

Daniel Fast Day 5 :: Life

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:20:00 +0000

After eight cycles of chemotherapy, Mike had the word "remission" added to his medical chart. Relief and happiness. It was spring.

We weren't through with the killing though. We embarked on a bone marrow transplant which is clinical jargon meaning "almost-murder at the hands of doctors, administered with the patient's consent." They even shorten it to the innocuous BMT, making it look like a cousin to the BLT. But there's no relation; this "ain't" no picnic.

They measure out enough poison to kill you, then back it off just a hair, and hope you live. Just before you die from it, they infuse stem cells into your bloodstream and wait for those little heroes to rescue your tortured body from certain death. Stem cells repair the body by morphing into whatever kind of cell is necessary to the occasion. The are microscopic life factories. They saved Mike's life.

God had spoken to us during that one good spring month between regular chemo and killer chemo. In so many different ways God spoke to us the need to live more deliberately a healthy lifestyle. The message was undeniable. He had given us our miracle. To be sure the cancer didn't return, we were to be committed to healthy nutrition, exercise, and adequate sleep.

We have done this and not done this. Life has a way of not turning out perfect, and Mike has found more consistency than I.

So when I say I struggle with food, it's an obedience issue. When you scoff because I wear size 8, looks can be deceiving.

God healed Mike in his mercy; He forgives us in his grace. So we infuse obedience yet again. And we wait for God's little life factories to repair injured us.

I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the Lord has done.

Psalm 118:17

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign

Day 4 :: Hunger

Daniel Fast Day 4 :: Hunger

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:18:00 +0000

It was a decade ago this week that Mike was three chemo treatments into a year's worth of treatment to kill the cancer.

I left him in a hospital bed for a month of nights with untreated cancer because we just couldn't get to it. He was too busy dying. I didn't know there could be more pressing issues than cancer. But a calcium release from your bones into your blood stream? Not good. Renal failure and liver failure? They were toe to toe at the coin toss to see which would get to be the first fatal domino to fall. All the while, there were irregular heart palpitations and trouble in pathology with a firm diagnosis which necessitated more surgery.

It was just past midnight when I laid on the mattress on the floor in my daughter's room. My waking hours were devoted to Mike, so I slept in the room with my children, the sleeping hours a widow's mite offering to my kids.

The rhythmic sounds of life, deep and young, lulled me from a peaceful crib and a twin bed. It occurred to me as I stared up at the ceiling, both wide awake and exhausted, that I was in the pose of a corpse in a casket. I felt adrenaline rush.

Babies' breath enveloped me. The smell mingled with desperation and the faint hospital stench.

"Dear God, spare him, spare him," numb, as I heard the whisper I had spoken.

Prayer had become an involuntary reflex, instinctive. Food was out of the question. I was hungry and thirsty for only a miracle.

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign

Daniel Fast Day 3 :: Foreign

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:39:00 +0000

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

~Daniel 1:8

Daniel found himself in a strange new land with a culture and customs that were foreign to a Jewish boy. They were being thrust upon him in preparation to becoming King Nebuchadnezzar's servant. This brought concern over the possibility that he might sin against the Lord in the midst of a decadent lifestyle. It's hard to live by God's standards in a foreign land, so he made a request to the king's official that he might maintain his holy lifestyle while he lived in exile in Babylon.

This is the essence of my 21 days this year, not necessarily fast-worthy foods. I have focused on the food in other years, and there is merit in that as well. But I called this year's fast a pseudo-Daniel Fast for me (Day One) because this time, for me, it's not about the food. It's about denying myself the metaphorical decadence from the world's royal table, and regaining my holy lifestyle as a citizen of Heaven while I live on Earth.

Photo Credit: Chinese Checkers in Beijing, the Forbidden City
Courtesy of my brother Wayne, taken October 2009

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow

Daniel Fast Day 2 :: Slow

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:36:00 +0000

We walk the edge of the earth, an old friend and I. Her pace is painfully slow. It's not even a pace, really, more like just walking aimlessly, and I begin to wonder if I can do this: go slow.

But the water below the dam laps like the Gulf of Mexico--the sound of home--and the shimmery sailboats wink in the sun. It's 70 degrees in January, and the conversation is sweet. So three hours and eight miles pass, and I've never walked that far all at once before.

You can go farther when you go slow.

It's Saturday, the day before the Daniel fast begins, and for days I have been weighing God's will and trying it on for size. Again. It's a dressing room decision, mulling over His will from every angle, studying the image of yourself wearing It in the mirror of your relationship with Him, and pretty sure It doesn't fit and you'll never wear It well.

Usually, when I get far enough down on myself, I attack the enemy with a vengeance that lasts, say, ten days. That's when sore muscles and fatigue from too few calories get the better of me, and I ask for a truce with the food monsters within.

My normal pace is frenetic.

Eight miles with the smell of water in the air to learn that this time will have to be different from the 104 other times when I decided to do whatever it takes to beat the food issues. I've never tried slow before.

You know what happens when you walk eight miles with a friend and enjoy catching up on each other's kids? You renew an old friendship. You also have sore hip flexors, you know, those muscles that don't get a good work out until you've walked a long distance.

Vicki is training for next weekend's half-marathon. She's going to walk it.

Sharing this in community with Jennifer at Getting Down With Jesus.

Photo Credit: Rick: Cafeinated, used with permission.
~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food

Daniel Fast Day 1 :: Food

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:30:00 +0000

I have food issues.

I brought them home from the hospital with my third child. Eating became a cheap past-time for this grown woman who had been brought to her knees by the responsibility demanded of a newborn plus a one-year-old plus a three-year-old. My schedule, my priorities, my activities, my preferences, and my sense of control had acquiesced to three little creatures that were consumers, not producers, on a different food chain. I became the producer by default, and consumed food to compensate.

Eating became the balm and my consolation.

Now my kids are sixteen, thirteen, and twelve; and I am thirty pounds heavier and "tired-er." My food issues have expanded their territory by three dress sizes, and I am no longer in need of balm or consolation.

What does this have to do with the Daniel Fast at CWO Church that starts today? It has to do with confession, a common first stage in prayer and fasting. It also has to do with accountability for me and, hopefully, encouragement for you. I have a hunch I'm not the only American who brought home a little extra balm and consolation one unsuspecting day, and has done battle with over-eating and/or emotional eating off and on ever since.

The first time we fasted in the fashion of Daniel as a church body, I was breastfeeding, so I participated creatively by fasting an hour of sleep each morning for quiet, uninterrupted bible study and prayer.

Even though we've done corporate Daniel fasting many times as a church body, I've never done it perfectly, without cheating; and this time, I'm not even striving for perfection. In fact, I'm doing a pseudo-Daniel Fast--not because I'm pregnant or breast-feeding this time, but because God is prompting me to take on this monster issue in my life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Winning this battle is going to take longer than 21 days, and will involve more than fruits and veggies. It's going to take total dependence, surrender, spiritual warfare, and gaining back some control I ceded to my rug-rats over a decade ago.

It's time to kick the habit.

I've never had to do that before: quit. Not smoking, gambling, biting my nails or sucking my thumb. I've never had to break a bad habit until now.

It's not going to be easy. I have food issues and a gargantuan fear of failure. But I also have the Holy Spirit to empower me and a desire to please God, a gargantuan one.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Romans 8:31

This post is shared in community with Michelle and Laura.

Sunday Scripture

noreply@blogger.com (Dawn @ Dawnings) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:29:00 +0000

God’s way is perfect.

All the Lord’s promises prove true.

He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

2 Samuel 22:31