Fasting

This will hereafter be known as The Week of Bryce in blogger land. I jest. However, I am talking about Bryce quite a bit because he has such an exciting, pubescent life.

Sunday was Bryce's first attempt at fasting. We had a little pep talk the night before and made sure we all started our fasts with a prayer and a purpose. Bryce woke up the next morning and was fine. He never eats breakfast anyway (like his father). I headed to PEC at 9:30 AM and brought Bryce with me since he had to do fast offerings. I got home from my meeting around 11 AM and got the story. Bryce had arrived at the church and very few fellow deacons had shown up to help. This left Bryce and Gaven working together to get 2 fast offering routes done. The day was quite warm and when the boys arrived at our house, Bryce was dying. If you count the sleeping part, he lasted for about 14 hours. Pretty good for a n00b.

It reminded me a lot of fasting experience I had on my mission. Imagine not eating or drinking for 24 hours while tracting in 108 degree temperatures with 80-100% humidity. It was highly dangerous. Looking back, I should have curtailed my tracting during those 24 hours and simply stayed at our flat. It would have made for a much more meaningful fast.

I also remember "fasting" at a much younger age than 12. However, my fasting consisted of not eating anything from the moment I arose Sunday to the moment I entered the house after church. It was never done with a prayer and never had a purpose. I was just starving myself. Kind of useless.

For me, fasting is a great way to overcome physical addictions, as seen here: Sugar Addiction I also have a friend who went on that 10-day Master Cleanse in order to rid himself of some eating addictions. It worked as well. My feelings about fasting have run the gamut. I've loved it, I've hated it. But most of all I've learned that it's necessary to overcome this physical beast which we have to tame here on earth. It's the best way to sacrifice that which is animal in us on the proverbial altar.