Lent began this week. I sometimes get flack for fasting. “Be careful, honey,” my mum will say every year in a disaproving tone as I embark on this journey of self-denial. As Richard Foster says, “The contstant propaganda fed to us today convinces us that if we do not have three large meals a day with several snacks in between, we are on the verge of starvation. This coupled with the popular belief that it is a positive virture to satisfy every human appetite has made fasting seem obsolete.”
But an incident of a few years ago reminds me, as I begrudgingly surrender to the fast this year, why I “afflict” myself with fasting.
One thing that is very important to our immediate family of four is family vacations. It is a rare sliver of consolidated time spent exclusively together once a year. After the birth of my second child, surrounded by an island of diapers and nursing bras and a sea of no sleep, I was dreaming of sweet vacation bliss. We booked a vacation to St. Maarten a year before our scheduled departure.
A few months later, my sister-in-law began planning her wedding. Out of all the weekends in the calendar year, she decided that she wanted to get married on the weekend we’d be in St. Maarten, and expected that we’d be able to reschedule our trip. However, the plane tickets were already booked - cancelling was not possible. Ben and I, coveting our family time, felt that since we’d made our plans innocently without any knowledge of even an engagement at the time, that she’d defer to us. We genuinely assumed she’d change the date when she found out we couldn’t change ours – but she didn’t.
Instead, the whole extended family banded together and accused us of selfishly planning a vacation on the day of the wedding! We were shocked at the accusation, and frustrated, and hurt. We pledged not to return for the wedding.
Upon making this decision, my once pristine relationship with my in-laws went catapulting into the carribean. For almost a year, there was tension, deep-seeded anger, and resentment between the two sides. Hurtful words and emails were exchanged, doors were slammed. Meanwhile, both the wedding date and the vacation date were set and refused to budge.
It is worth mentioning that my in-laws are also Christians. We should have been able to work this out in a civilized, loving, Christ-honoring way. But sin was firmly rooted in us. Throughout this time, I was praying for God to help me. I was praying for Him to rid me of my obsessive evil thoughts and feelings towards them that would rise up uncontrollably and surface at random, even during prayer. But no break-throughs occurred. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. It was awful.
Then Lent came. And the Great 40-day Fast began. In my faith tradition, this means I ate a “Daniel Diet”, as I like to call it, abstaining from all animal products. I also cut back on entertainment factors in my life (for example, I ceased watching useless shows like “the Bachelor”). And I tried not to buy anything unnecessary, and to live a life more conducive to prayer, less busy and noisy.
With the addition of fasting, I continued in prayer about this grave family conflict. Gradually over the course of the 40 days, my anger died, my evil thoughts were cut off. Finally and most crucially, a desire for peace and forgiveness was born. I was humbled exceedingly.
We cut our vacation short to attend the wedding. Our relationship has since been restored 10 fold to what it was even in it’s previous pristine condition. I can only attribute this outcome to the fasting that I believe weakened my self-will and strengthened my prayers.
“Fasting can bring breakthroughs in the spiritual realm that will never happen in any other way.” Richard Foster
