My Fasting Successes and Failures, oh and $50 bucks

As we speak, I am drinking a Coca-Cola. Booooooooooooooooo!

I have not cut meat entirely out of my diet, but I am limiting it to one small portion per day. One night this week I even ate a bloody hunk of sirloin, and loved every morsel.

My Facebook fast is going splendidly. I only logged on one time and that was only because I needed to retrieve some info I had in an email on my facebook account. I didn't even check on the status updates...just straight into email and right back out. I'm feeling pretty awesome about this. It has been about 3 weeks now. Yay.

**For those who don't know....I am not fasting for Lent. I gave up Facebook for 9 weeks while I am doing the Beth Moore Bible Study entitled, "Believing God"... just because I felt led to. The meat and the occasional soda are bothering my conscious...as I used to be vegetarian for almost 3 years.

If you were hanging around my blog a few weeks ago when I announced my Facebook fast, you might recall that it is because I was basically using facebook as time to avoid my husband...and that we are in counseling, etc. I wanted to dedicate my heart back to him and be curious about his status updates for a change. God is blessing this effort. Our wonderful marriage counselor has given us some assignments and we are spending time doing those. We are doing a daily devotional together every night, talking about our day, and offering our day to God in prayer. We have never done anything like this before, so it is new for us, and it is very good. Now we have a new assignment to add to that....and that is that we have to go on a date once a week. That is 52 times a year, verses not having gone on a date at all in probably 3 years. So yep, we're cranking it up a bit. Tomorrow we are having an afternoon date together, which is going to be interesting. We have to spend 3 hours together, by ourselves. We have to take turns choosing what we will do each week. And we are not aloud to talk about our children. GASP! I can't really go 10 minutes without talking about them....so to state that this will be a challenge is a gross understatement. But as for today, I deeply believe that our restoration has begun. We are happy about that. We have escpaed the courtroom, division of property, and the shattering of the hearts of our children. I cannot praise God loud enough for this. Although the next steps are unseen by us, I know that we are finally walking on the path that Christ made for us. It feels good.

TRUCK UPDATE: Have I mentioned that donations have arrived in my mailbox every single day since I began the fundraiser? And that I walk to the mailbox with a grin on my face because God is cracking me up? Well...today is no different. One of the early donors mailed another check today. $50. A letter to me explained how much she loves her truck, how useful it is, and that she loves to use it to help people move stuff, etc. She felt God "gently nudging" her to send more. I just LOVE these stories. She included a scripture in her letter, one that I just love.

Galations 6:2 "Bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ."

As much as I hated using the word "burden" to describe the calling I felt to help Mrs. Maruta get a truck, it was exactly that. And oddly....after I sent Mrs. Maruta an email early on asking her questions about the truck, she asked me if Christ had placed this "burden" on me. (Uh, indeed He did.) And then I placed the "burden" on nearly everyone in my email contact database. Right there in scripture it says for us to bear each other's burdens. But how often do we do that? There are some things we cannot do. We cannot carry someone's illness. But I recall a woman last year who blogged about a horrible trauma that another family was going through, and on their behalf she asked if her readers would help carry the burden. Would you go to God in prayer and ask Him to transfer some of that pain to you, to ease the pain of this family for even just one day? I remember being so moved by that concept and I agreed. I got on my knees and I prayed that He would allow me to carry some of their pain for a couple of days so that they could better cope with what they were experiencing. I wept. I wept a lot. I wept so much I had a migraine. Why? Well, why not? There are so many burdens that I walk right on past. I rarely give money to a homeless person. Sometimes I get prayer requests for people I do not know and I have a hard time praying, or feeling like I'm being sincere. I have dear, amazing, precious friends who I fail to call and check on the status of their hearts when they are in the middle of a crisis. Sometimes the burden is financial, while other times it is devastation in health, family, or loss. I am so thankful to everyone who is taking on the burden of this truck, for every dime you sacrifice. Thank you. I cannot thank you enough.