A Timely Fast

Last week Jen and Tim suggested that we have a fast about many issues that have beset our family of late.  We have had a couple of kids out of work, Ken and I unable to get visas, sickness both physical and emotional and a couple of other serious issues going on inside our immediate and extended family and with friends as well.  As I was preparing for the fast, I got wondering what the basic principle behind fasting is.  I asked Ken and he didn't seem to have a satisfactory answer for me or himself.  We looked it up in the Bible Dictionary and a couple of other sources.  We still found nothing that really satisfied our basic question outside the fact that it is to help bolster spiritual strength.

We did fast and invited many to join our fast with us.  Many of you did joing us and let us know that.  I'm sure that many more joined us without letting us know you were doing so.  Still I was not sure just what a fast was supposed to do until this morning when I came to a very personal understanding.  You see some pretty "specific" answers came in a very obvious way.  Bill landed another job this morning.  He now has two jobs that between them will help keep his family fed and housed and clothed.  We were informed that we could apply for our visas and between Thursday afternoon (before the fast started) and Monday afternoon, we obtained our paperwork, got physicals (again), had the blood work done (again), had xrays and returned the paperwork all finished to the travel department of the church at the church office building in person.  I think we are really on our way.

All of this was an obvious benefit of the fast but as Ken and I knelt in prayer this morning to give thanks for these events, I was struck by all the many other times we have fasted and by the many times that the results have not been so obvious.  We have fasted many times for Micah to be able to find a way to care for his family.  Our interpretation of that has most often been that he would find a job.  That has not been forthcoming but the way has been provided for him to go back to school while still keeping his family cared for.  I had confirmation this morning that this was the way that he is supposed to be going for the future well-being of he and his sweet family.  Many other things have been made known to me in that "still small voice" that have not been huge manifestations of something immediate but they are just as real.

Today is Jamie's 37th birthday.  It has been a tough day.  Some of her birthdays have been this way.  I want to know what my 37 year old daughter would be doing now.  Would she be as beautiful in every way as her sisters?  Would she have a family? Would she be as big a part of our family as our other children still are?  Would we have 20 0r 22 grandchildren instead of 18?  Jason and Aretta have been through a similar experience.  36 years ago, many people fasted for us to make it through the "worst experience of our lives".  We did make it and we have made it through many, many tough things since.  I have decided that fasting is not to provide the answer that we are looking for but the strength to accept the answer we need.  Looking back on the answers to so many fasts, I see that the answers were always the right ones, I just didn't know it at the time.