You Fasted And It Stayed Exactly Where It Was

The second time, she did not tell anyone at all. Not even the friend who had told her about it in the first place.

She got through it. She was careful and she was sensible and she was, if she is honest, quietly hopeful in a way she would have denied out loud, because hoping out loud felt like tempting something.

And on the far side of it, the thing was exactly where it had been. Not slightly better. Not moving. In the same place, with the same weight, on the same Tuesday.

What she remembers is not the disappointment. It is what she did next, which was to get up, put the kettle on, and go to work, and never mention it to a single living soul, and privately file the whole episode under a heading she would never say out loud either.

Something like: it works for other people.

That is the sentence I have come for. Not the fast. The sentence you wrote about yourself on the morning after.

If you are carrying one of those, come and sit down, and I promise you I am not going to explain your outcome to you.

I am not going to tell you why

Let us clear the ground, because bracing for this is the natural thing to do at a title like that one.

I am not going to tell you that you did it wrong. I am not going to suggest it was too short, or that your motive had something in it, or that you were asking for the wrong thing, or that God was protecting you from an answer you did not understand, or that the real work was happening invisibly and you simply could not see it.

Some of those sentences are said kindly. All of them do the same thing: they hand the failure back to you and dress it as an explanation.

You are not being withheld from. Not for a reason you have not spotted, and not for one you have. I am not saying that to comfort you: it is the written word, that the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and it is the Holy Spirit and not my paragraph that makes that steady in a woman who has run out of hope in a particular direction.

And I am not going to argue with your disappointment either. You are allowed to be disappointed. The book is full of people who were, and God kept their sentences in it rather than tidying them out.

What you actually bought was nothing, and that is the good part

Here is the thing that has been sitting underneath this the whole time, and it is worth saying plainly even though it sounds blunt.

Your fast did not fail. It could not fail, because it was never a payment, and a payment is the only kind of thing that can be refused.

Nothing was for sale. There was no price on your situation. Going without food does not deposit anything, does not raise anything, does not qualify anybody and does not oblige God, and if that sounds like it takes something away from you, sit with it for one more minute, because it is the opposite.

If it had been a payment, then this outcome would mean exactly what you are afraid it means. It would mean you were short. That is the arithmetic you have been carrying since that Tuesday, and it only works if there was a counter and a price, and there is neither.

You did not come up short, because there was no sum being done. The written word puts it as a gift, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23), and gifts do not have a shortfall, and the Spirit is the one who takes that off the page and puts it into the room where you drink your tea.

What it costs to be careful, and why we are careful here

One thing that has to be said on a page like this, and it is not an aside.

Some people must not go without food at all. If you live with diabetes, if you are pregnant or nursing, if you take medication, if you have ever had a hard relationship with eating, if you are underweight or unwell or frail or elderly, or if you are not certain, then speak to your doctor before going without anything and let their answer be the answer. And nothing here suggests going without food as a way of getting better, of helping an illness, or of shifting a diagnosis. If you are ill, you are with your doctor and you stay with them. The written word says He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust (Psalm 103:14), and His Spirit is the one who makes that steady in somebody whose body sets the terms.

And if the morning after left something heavier in you than disappointment, if you are frightened for yourself, please ring somebody real: your doctor, a counselor, or a crisis line, and the emergency services if you or anybody near you is in danger tonight.