God's Gifts to Me and How I'm Going to Express My Thankfulness to Him

Today is the last day of 2010 and the fourth day of my pre-fast to start a 21 Day Fast.  What???!!!  Yeah,  you read that right.  If you've never heard of or considered a fast that is that long then you undoubtedly think I'm out of my mind.  I've done it twice before in January but I skipped it last year.  I typically don't say anything about it except to others in my life who are doing the same thing in January but I feel like I need to share about it this year.  Before you think I'm doing it to lose weight, think again.  Not that I can't spare a few pounds--I certainly can--but if you set out to fast for 21 days just to lose weight you will fail miserably.  This is much more a spiritual thing than a physical thing but it ends up being a very mental thing as well as you make the conscious choice to deny that cookie or piece of cake or slice of bread or whatever.  You might wonder why I'm choosing to do it this year after skipping last year and I'll get to that later.  A lot of people fast because they are praying for specific things and I honestly have to say that I'm really not praying for anything specific.  My main purpose in doing the fast this year is because my heart is just overflowing with thankfulness for all that God has accomplished in 2010 and how he shows His faithfulness over and over to me.

I guess I need to back up a little to give a better explanation.  This is probably going to end up being another transparent post like this one with an update to that post thrown in.  On Christmas Day we were opening gifts at my parents' house and Ethan was sitting on the floor next to my chair.  We had already opened gifts on Christmas Eve with Uncle Rob, Aunt Lisa, Alex, Mimi and Poppy; but Christmas Day was for the Santa gifts.  Ethan had a good number of gifts to open and every now and then he would lean over to me and whisper that he couldn't believe he had gotten that many gifts.  When we were finished opening he said, "Wow.  I didn't know I was that good of a boy this year."  While it was funny in the moment and I explained to him that some of his gifts were to share with his older brother and younger brother--benefits of being the middle child--I started to give it further thought later on.  First of all, Ethan is a good boy.  All of my boys are good and I tell them so frequently.  They aren't perfect, and they won't ever be; but they are obedient, sweet, and the absolute light of my life.  But, Ethan relating getting lots of gifts to being a good boy made me think of how we have to do absolutely nothing to receive the true gift of Christmas--God's Son, Jesus.  He sent His Son to make the ultimate sacrifice and we can't do anything to earn it.  It's a free gift, only contingent upon our willingness to accept it.  When I decided to do the fast I thought about this gift and how I just want to express my thankfulness to Him.

Now, to answer the question as to why I skipped last year, it was because of my inner ear situation.  I began having the serious equilibrium episodes in mid-November last year and since one of the thoughts is that it's related to sodium intake I didn't want to rock the boat with my tenuous, unpredictable condition.  Once again, if you want the full rundown of what happened to me physically up until October 2010 then you need to read this post.  However, in mid-October I believe I came upon the final solution to my inner ear problems.  I have my Mom to thank for that, and of course, God for leading me to the solution.  Here's where I sound like I'm getting compensated from my new doctor for saying this.  I started going to one of only two doctors in St. Louis who do "upper cervical care."  It's a completely different kind of chiropractic care that focuses solely on the top seven vertebrae.  Before you think I'm crazy, let me tell that you that the proof is in the results.  It's possible that the misalignment in my upper cervical spine is due to a bad fall I took down the stairs when I was ten years old and it brought about the symptoms I've experienced over the last three years.  Currently, I have very low-volume ringing in my left ear and no equilibrium symptoms at all.  Yea!!!  I feel like I have my life back.  I won't go into detail as to how it works for sake of not making a long post even longer, but if you are interested in learning more about it you can google "upper cervical care."  I found my doctor by googling "upper cervical care St. Louis."  This type of treatment helps all sorts of problems; specifically fibromyalgia, sinus problems, migraines, digestive issues, etc. etc.  The list goes on.  I am just so thankful to have found the solution to this life-altering, depressing, frustrating situation.  My neurotologist told me at my follow-up appointment after having upper cervical care for about 3 weeks and having a near-perfect hearing test that if this is really the solution to my inner ear condition then he is going back to chiropractic school.  Ha!!  He was skeptical, to say the least, but after my hearing test he agreed to read my brochure.  I go back to see him again in February and I can't wait to do just a tad bit of gloating.  When I decided to do the fast I thought about this gift and how I just want to express my thankfulness to Him.

What else do I have to be thankful for, you might ask?  Of course, there's the usual list of things which we can often take for granted.  Healthy family, my job, food and shelter, cute shoes--you know, the usual things.  But, this year God answered a big prayer for our church in a big way and he did it in His timing which happened to be the week of Christmas.  A coincidence?  I think not.  This is another little piece of transparency which I choose not to share most of the time but I will today in order to give God every bit of the glory.  You see, like many churches our church has struggled in an immense way financially over the last 2+ years.  It's been bad...really bad.  So bad that Lindy has sacrificed so many paychecks over the last 2 years that I gave up counting them about 18 months ago.  He did this so that the staff could get paid because we definitely did not want to lose them.  Doing ministry without staff--specifically our staff--was a worse option by far than sacrificing income.  It was also a matter of making sure the church electric bill got paid.  There were many instances where it was an hour before they were coming to turn off the electric and the money was somehow scraped together to keep it from happening. Needless to say, this has been extremely stressful for Lindy, who carried this emotional burden of this by himself for a long time; and then for the staff and the board.  But, as we know, God is always faithful and He always pays his debts.  We can stand upon His promises.  His Word says that He honors our faithfulness to Him and while Lindy and I have been faithful in tithing, giving to missions, taking visiting ministers and missionaries out to lunch; we always knew that we couldn't out give God and He would show Himself faithful.  He absolutely did.  Without getting too technical in this explanation, Lindy and the board worked an amazing deal for an easement on the cell tower that sits on the church property; and it has proven to be very lucrative.  After Lindy closed the deal on the Monday before Christmas the church got the first check that not only was used to tithe to several ministries and missionaries, it got the church completely out of debt--with the exception of the mortgage--and started paying Lindy back a few paychecks along with some reimbursement of expenses incurred over the last three moths, and a tidy little bonus to boot.  The staff were also paid in full and given bonuses; and we all rejoiced in what we knew God would do all along--be faithful to His promises.  When I decided to do the fast I thought about this gift and how I just want to express my thankfulness to Him.

This has been an eventful year full of blessings.  I am a "glass half full" person so I tend to focus on the good and shake off the bad.  I know that 2011 will be wonderful in unexpected ways and I can't wait to see what God does just because I choose to trust Him.  I pray God's best for you in this new year too.