Daniel Fasts, Elimination Diets and Intimacy with God

    My husband and I decided at the end of 2016 that in January of 2017 we would do a 21 day Daniel Fast. For us, that basically meant a vegan diet with no sugars (still did honey and maple syrup) and no caffeine (no coffee, but drinking decaf tea!).
The point of the Fast wasn’t to lose weight – though that would be a great benefit!! – but to break the old bad habits, addictions to sugar, get us thinking about healthy food choices and how we want to change our diet for the long run, and of course to draw closer to God.
          I also have struggles with allergic reactions, to I don’t know what, which are extremely frustrating, last for days and are painful. The area around my lips gets very red, tingles, burns and itches for a day or two, and for the next few days after are very dry and itchy. So in my journey to grow closer to God, I also want to find some answers and solutions to my physical aliments.

          Our Fast started Thursday, January 12^th and for almost 2 weeks was going very well. It is an adjustment to cut out all meat and dairy (and sugar!!!!!!!!) and trying to think of what you will make without having your favorite meals to fall back on... and very little eating out or ordering in! But it was going well and we were still enjoying so many healthy and yummy foods! Then on Tuesday, day 13 of 21, I had some Fast friendly pancakes for breakfast (I was getting really tired of oatmeal), which included some of my homemade applesauce, and I had an allergic reaction! Now I don’t remember if there is any sugar in that batch of applesauce but I was 90% sure it was just apples and cinnamon! So frustrating!
I thought that maybe I was allergic to cinnamon before, but then I tried putting cinnamon in my mouth with no reaction. I’ve been eating oatmeal with cinnamon and maple syrup for days with no reaction. I’ve been drinking cinnamon tea with no reaction. Ok... so maybe it’s not cinnamon.. Apples? My allergist said that apples could bother me... but I’ve been eating raw apples with no problems! I made an apple pie like filling with cut up apples, cinnamon, maple syrup and oats and baked it and had no problems... the pancakes were made with chia seeds... I use chia seeds a lot in my baking. But I don’t react to everything I bake, so this is the frustrating part for me. I also react to things that do not have chia seeds in them. (Pancake recipe can found - http://completerecipes.com/Healthy-Banana-Pancakes.html?back_url=./ - I used chia seeds instead of eggs, used my homemade applesauce, added cinnamon and no Vinnamon).
The day after my reaction to the pancakes, I bought some more hummus (which I had been eating so much of for the Fast) and it made my reaction worse! I bought a different brand than the one we had been eating all along! Ugh!!! Should have known!

          Anyway... at that point I knew I had to do a version of an Elimination Diet to try and start to get some answers to my very frustrating and seemingly random reactions. Then at least I might have something to go to the allergist with in the future. But I knew this diet wasn’t just about figuring out allergies. I knew this diet went so much deeper than that. I knew months ago I should be doing this diet, but then I would have a good couple of weeks with no reactions and justify and excuse to myself once again that I didn’t really have to do this diet. But when God is asking you to do something – something that will ultimately be a blessing to you – then no matter how much you put it off, excuse it, or try to justify it away, He is not going to let up! This reaction was my breaking point after 2 weeks on the Daniel Fast.
My husband is continuing on with his last week of the Fast but I broke the Fast a week early and am doing a 7 day Elimination Diet. I am on day 5 of eating chicken, beef, rice, salt and water... breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack. Though I haven’t really been all that hungry lately, so it’s more like brunch, dinner and maybe a 3^rd meal in there somewhere.

          What makes me think God is the one nudging me towards an Elimination Diet and not just my body and my complete frustration and lack of answers to these allergic reactions? What is it that makes me think God is using the seemingly randomness of my reactions to get my attention?
          When I started the Fast I started reading this book, Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst (one of my favorite Christian authors! You just know that what she is sharing with you is a personal journey God has brought her through! So powerful.). I read the first few chapters while walking on the treadmill at the gym. I knew this book would hold a lot of insight, and of course, it spoke directly to me and to a lot of my struggles with food. At one point, she was talking about running 3 miles a day but one day she felt that God was telling her to keep running until He told her to stop. That day she ran 8.6 miles! I average 3km on the treadmill in an hour! I have no desire to take up running or jogging or any long distance exercise. Not saying it will never happen, but that’s not a desire of mine!!! But I felt like this Elimination Diet was my 8.6 mile run. I felt like this Diet was God calling me to walk with Him in His strength. That the Fast had a few challenges but still too many comforts. That instead of really pressing into God when having a craving for coffee or ice cream (or chocolate, or cookies, or chicken in our chili or beef in our tacos.....) I was just snacking on popcorn (big large bowls of popcorn almost nightly...it became my new major craving!) and drinking a nice, hot cup of tea. I wasn’t replacing my food cravings with God, but just different food.

          In Made to Crave, Lysa Terkeurst talked about praying to God to unsettle her. To bring out all the junk she needed to deal with to the surface. Well I have got to tell you, I am feeling very unsettled. It took about 12 hours into my Diet to be upset about not having a hot cup of tea, and knowing I wouldn’t be able to have a hot cup of tea (or coffee) for the next week plus. Who knows when I will be able to add back in tea, coffee (I’m ok with decaf), sugar and cream? And the very fact that you can only add one new ingredient every 24 hours (assuming there is no reaction) is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! That’s like 72 hours before I can drink an actual cup of coffee (or tea, assuming it is one ingredient and not one of the many flavors I have like Birthday Cake or Caramel Popcorn....).
What has me feeling very frustrated is that I was drinking coffee (with cream and sugar) before my Fast and drinking tea before and during my Fast, with no reactions! Not around my lips anyway. So why, oh why, can’t I just have one darn cup of anything hot (besides just water!!) after my 7 days are over??!! WHY!!????? Ok, ok, yes, I understand how Elimination Diets are meant to work and why you only add one thing back at a time (in case you do have a reaction). This is just my flesh screaming at me. This is just my flesh yelling and screaming, slowly and painfully dying...
          I am feeling unsettled. I am feeling restless. I feel like I am going to go crazy! I dished out applesauce for my daughters lunches this week and I could smell the applesauce that was used in the dreaded pancakes that caused the reaction, and it smelled so delicious (kind of like apple pie filling), my mouth was watering and I have never wanted applesauce before so much in my life!
And I am feeling pretty miserable. My stomach is stilling giving me issues (thanks to being a woman! And the fact that I can only use salt for flavoring probably isn’t helping!), and almost 3 weeks into a Fast/Diet, with  lots of water and no caffeine, (and no processed sugars) and I am just feeling like crap! I’m still very tired and my stomach has felt hard and bloated for most of it. And it really doesn’t help that out of 3 weeks, I’ve had a week of PMS and a week of what follows PMS! So all of this is just adding to my frustrations of not being able to turn to food (or drink) for any comfort.

          I really want to make this journey about God. Not about what I can or cannot eat. Not about the number on the scale (though I do have a goal to lose weight this year.). I want it to be about denying myself in order to deal with all the junk and thanking God for the good and healthy food I can eat. I want it to be about finding my identity and building the foundation and rooting myself to the truths of God’s Word. I want it to be about finding satisfaction, comfort, love, joy and peace in God. But mostly it just feels like one big, miserable pity party, where my flesh slowly, and not willingly, dies, with no spiritual break through at all.
          I know I have been making poor food choices for decades (sugar is definitely my biggest weakness/struggle) and 3 weeks isn’t going to magically fix all my food/diet issues and struggles. I know that I must walk with God every day, and not just for 3 weeks. I am just at the beginning of this journey and not loving it and feeling miserable! I need a lot of prayer, that is for sure! And mostly I just want this Diet to be over so I can eat ice cream, and cookies and chocolate and drink coffee and tea, and eat more healthy foods and have all the things I cannot eat right now.
          So, if you’ve managed to read this far, thank you! This is just the beginning of a life long journey. I am miserable and this is my explanation of my Fast/Diet and my rant of my frustrations. And if you’re a person of prayer, I would really appreciate your prayers for strength to walk through this Elimination Diet, for spiritual break through and a closer, deeper, more intimate connection with God, and answers to the physical side of things like the allergic reactions and what is causing them.

Psalm 78:18New International Version (NIV)

¹⁸ They willfully put God to the test
    by demanding the food they craved.

Psalm 5:1-3The Message (MSG)

A David Psalm

5 ^1-3 Listen, God! Please, pay attention!
Can you make sense of these ramblings,
my groans and cries?
    King-God, I need your help.
Every morning
    you’ll hear me at it again.
Every morning
    I lay out the pieces of my life
    on your altar
    and watch for fire to descend.

5 Years of Motherhood

Today marks the day I become a mother, 5 long, yet oh so short, years ago. As I have heard said before, the days are long and the years short. How true it is!
Technically I could say I  became a mom in April of 2011 when I conceived. I could say I became a mom in May of 2011 when I took a test that confirmed my pregnancy. Or in June when I had my first ultrasound to date the pregnancy and I found out I was 8 weeks, 1 day pregnant.
But I didn’t feel like a mom back than. I had terrible morning sickness from about 6 weeks till 16 ish, weeks. I enjoyed feeling the baby moving around inside my womb, which was fascinating and weird, and I loved watching my baby grow through the ultrasounds throughout my pregnancy (and being sure to tell them every time “we don’t want to know the gender!!! I was so worried they would let it slip!). But I did not feel like a mom.
On a Tuesday in January of 2012, 2 days before my due date, 3 days before I hoped to give birth (which would have been Friday the 13th), I was called in for my last ultrasound. My fluids were low and they sent me across the street to the hospital where they would induce me and in about 12 hours I would meet my baby.
I was scared. I wasn’t ready to be a mom yet! I wasn’t ready when I peed on that stick 8 months before and I wasn’t ready now as I stood in line waiting to register and be brought up to labour and delivery. This was my first pregnancy, my first baby, and I told my OBGYN that I did not want to be induced unless absolutely necessary. And here I was, 2 days before my due date, being induced and my OBGYN had the day off!
That evening, after 9pm on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012, our first baby, a baby girl, entered the world, making me a mother, making my husband a father! It was incredible and amazing, and shocking and I was in disbelief until the next day. We did not have a name for our little girl that night but sometime around 4am we settled on Sophie, meaning wisdom. We chose Marie for her middle name after both my grandmothers, both named Mary, my maternal grandmother having passed away in 1997. And my husband's family being French, we felt that Sophie Marie also sounded French :)
5 years ago, I gave birth to an amazing, 6 pound, 8 ounce, sweet little baby girl and I felt nowhere near ready to be a mother. 5 years (and 2 more children) later, and I still feel nowhere near ready to be a mother! Being a mother is an incredibly trying, difficult, hard, amazing, rewarding, exhausting, joy filled, stretching, breaking, rebuilding experience.
In one breath you want to run away forever and never look back, in the next you can’t believe how blessed you are to call these amazing, little humans, your children. On one hand you question your sanity in ever having one (then more) children and in the next moment, baby fever hits you HARD! On one hand I feel like I started my mothering journey when I was “so old” but on the other hand I think, how can I possibly be old enough to have 3 kids, including a 5 year old!
In 5 years of parenting, and with 3 children, I have learned that I am not strong enough to be a mother. I don’t have what it takes. Not on my own, not in my own strength. God gave me these incredible children, challenges and all, and I count myself beyond blessed. I am also married to a man who is the most incredible father and who balances me out so well. Without him, I do not know what I would do. But I do know that without God, I would be a complete mess and I would either run away forever and not look back, or I would be in the psych ward having gone completely mad!
You want to know a little secret? God does give you more than you can handle! God wants you to completely trust in Him and come to Him and surrender to Him and allow Him to sustain you. God wants my old habits and old life, and sin wrecked flesh to be torn down, broken apart, dead and buried, and He wants me raised up to new, abundant, joy filled, free life, walking not in the flesh but in the power of His mighty Spirit.
God didn’t just give me these children to mold and shape, teach and nurture, but to mold, shape and teach me!  
God gave me Sophie Marie 5 years ago, making me a mother, growing and nurturing a mother’s heart within me.
Sophie is wise, as her name suggests. She is hilarious, making all of us laugh, which is an everyday reminder to a prayer I had prayed over me and the child within my womb 3 days before she was born. She is caring and compassionate, always thinking about her younger siblings and trying to help me out. She is incredibly smart and her memory astounds me!
Happy 5th Birthday Sophie! Mommy loves you!! May God continue to guide, teach, shape and mold me, as I walk through this ever changing and challenging journey of parenting and learning how to discipline, nurture, teach and shape you. May I see the way God has made you and call out all your strengths, gifts and talents, while also teaching you to be humble, never thinking of yourself greater than you ought to, but putting others before yourself. May I be able to teach you how to be a strong, powerful, Godly woman of influence, while also being compassionate and loving towards others.
Sophie, you are a strong, funny, compassionate, beautiful girl of God. May God’s face continue to shine upon you, may His Spirit guide you, may your path be lighted by the Light of Jesus and His Truth be the foundation of your life.
God bless you, baby girl <3