I was recently reminded about a time, many years ago, when the Lord led me on a fast.
I was part of a non-denominational community where prayer and fasting were common, but my life was so stressful and physically taxing that I had a hard time committing to it.
The country was coming up to an election and our community committed to a three-day fast leading up to the election. So, I decided to join in. I knew I would do something but how I managed to participate was unclear to me.
The first morning I got up and had my usual cup of coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and heavy cream—none of this diluted half-n-half for me!
The rest of the day was as strenuous as ever, but I had no desire to eat. Even though I had to fix meals for my husband, I was able to resist the temptation of even a taste.
The election came but the fast didn’t end there. The day after the election, I had my usual cup of coffee, and again, went the rest of the day without so much as the desire to eat.
I won’t say how long this went (I want my reward in heaven!), but it continued. Some days later, my stomach began to ache. It wasn’t the usual hunger pangs. It was actual pain. Even so, the Lord gave me the power to resist food. He made it unusually easy!
When I went to what we called the prayer room, I walked down the aisle, looking for a seat. In my head I heard the words, “pickle juice.”
The thought was so foreign to me that I knew it wasn’t my thought. Of all the foods I could be hallucinating about at this point in the fast, it would not be pickles, or the juice.
When I finished my prayer time, I went home, walked straight to the refrigerator, grabbed the jar of baby dill pickles, and took a swig of the juice. As the juice entered my stomach, the pain instantly subsided with an ahhh-sensation of relief. The Lord is so kind!
The Lord continued to allow me my usual cup of coffee in the morning heavy cream and all—He is so generous! And He continued to sustain me without so much as the temptation of food as I continued my rigorous schedule and preparation of my husband’s meals. Every day, I drank approximately one ounce of pickle juice twice a day until I felt the Lord release me from the fast.
However, something which I don’t fully understand happened. As an odd consequence of my dependence on the pickle juice during this time, for several months after the fast ended, I continued to crave pickles—a lot of pickles. I consumed more than half of the small jars of baby dills every day.
