Kristin's Day 2 - What have I become??

Every weekday morning I either practice Yoga at 5am, get a shower, and drink coffee in front of the Today show or I stumble out of bed between 7 and 8 and drink coffee in front of the Today show. I have it on for one to two hours - every weekday morning...

This fast includes NO Today show. I sat on the couch with my coffee and oatmeal (which ew, why do people like oatmeal) and did not know what to do with myself. I'm not checking social media regularly. I'm not playing Candy Crush: Jelly Saga. I had a moment of 'what in the world should I do with myself'???

I texted this to Kelly...

PATHETIC. You don't realize how addicted you are to something until you take it away. Granted, this only lasted about five minutes, but it happened. I mean like what have I become?

Kelly suggested that I start a new book, have any you've read that you'd recommend??

For very very selfish reasons, I need this fast. It's like this. Until I can get beyond myself, what I think I need, what I fill my life with? My everything is affected - especially my relationship with God. He is supposed to be my everything, my all in all. The Today Show? Not a sin, but an indicator that I need re-aligned. When re-alignment happens, I'm more in-tune with God. I don't get caught up in worthless habits to the point where I don't know how to spend time without them. I'll clear my head to hear HIS voice. I'll take my eyes out of screens to become available to be HIS hands and feet extended. 

Let the re-alignment BEGIN.

KELLY'S DAY TWO: THE POPE JUST RUINED ME.

Two quotes have hit home in the last 24 hours:

1~"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death."~Elie Wiesel

2~"No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great." ~Pope Francis

OUCH.
I hate being slapped upside the head with truth, don't you?...it means change is coming.
Sometimes, I like change.
Sometimes I don't, but at least when I am required to change, it means I won't become complacent, lazy or indifferent. Change means GROWTH, and I DO LIKE THAT. Because, at the end of my life, I hope I'm not the same stupid, selfish idiot I was when I was fifteen. I hope I'm not the same, selfish, blind-to-the-things-of-this-world woman I was in my twenties, and I hope I'm not the wretched, hate-filled, likes-to-stick-her-head-in-the-mud-so-she-doesn't-have-to-know-about-things-like-sex-trafficking spectacle I am in my thirties. And, I hope and pray that I'm not the "old lady" who constantly talks about medical issues, the weather, or how horrible the newest generation has become. So, somewhere in between, fifteen, the twenties, the thirties and the eighties, I NEED TO CHANGE!

WHY?
...because the 15-year-olds need to know the things I learned when I was 15!
...because the twenty-somethings need to be made aware!
...because the thirty-somethings need to pull their heads outta the mud!
...and the eighty-somethings need to fill our brains with the wisdom they learned instead of weather forecasts! Leave that crap to the weathermen! I want the WISDOM...because I'm so sick and tired of having to learn things the hard way! TEACH ME, DAMMIT (Yes, I just cussed! pray for me!...and then make me WISE!)
...I am now accepting applications for mentors. Please PM me on FB for the link. PS-must be a SAHM, who LOLs a lot and has never used FML before. I can't STAND FML. SML acceptable, and I was just kidding about the SAHM part.

My thoughts on quote #1:
If the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, I'm in business. The problem herein lies in the fact that I get SO OVERWHELMED when I KNOW what's going on in the streets of Charlotte, or the back sticks of Kentucky or the deserts of Africa that I freeze. I literally cannot move. I can't begin to wrap my brain around the suffering, so I would literally rather never watch the news or hear sad things. Know a family going through something sorrowful, PLEASE don't tell me. It will literally keep me up at night. It will make me sick to my stomach. I would rather build a well for a village in Africa than buy a new car. Maybe I should. Maybe I will.

My thoughts on quote #2:
FASTING IS *NOT* enough. There. Thank you, Pope Francis. You just ruined me. Because this fast might be good for me. Heck. It MIGHT be good for YOU (readers, beyond veganers...did we ever come up with a name to call you?). But, this blog? This fast? Psht. It's not virtuous. Eating only veggies and fruits (and, now grains this time) isn't costing me a THING. I'm not doing a THING that is good for others. The Pope has "slapped me upside the head." Whoa is me. And, to be entirely honest with your right now, I ACTUALLY just said a prayer to Jesus that went something like this, "Oh, Jesus, PLEASE don't ask me to do anything big." I'm thirty-six. Wretched still.

"Please, Jesus. Change me. Take the next 50 years, but GROW me. I don't want to be complacent, or indifferent, or lazy, and I sure don't want to have "meaty" conversations about weather. ~Amen."

Day One - Back at it like a Habit

Yep! Here we are...again. This marks year five for me. This yearly journey is one that I hate and love at the same time. Do you have something in your life like that??

Year One - It was ALL about the FOOD. Kelly and I were basically food dumb to be blunt. We learned so much about what is in and what it takes to grow, produce, and choose food carefully.

Year Two - I was pregnant and ventured on without my partner, Kelly. I tried to fast from some foods, but ended up losing almost seven pounds - great any other time in life, but NOT while 3 months pregnant lol! SO, I switched gears and fasted from Facebook instead.

Year Three - It wasn't easy, but the food restrictions started to not be a big deal. What God was teaching me spiritually overshadowed anything I limited. Kelly and Dallas were STILL waiting on brining their boys home that year. We fasted and prayed to open doors, complete processes and in the final days of Lent that year - that is EXACTLY what happened. Faubert and Jean Marie finally came home. God is SO good.

Year Four - At this point my body was used to me stripping it of certain things and again the spiritual take-aways were HUGE. I added a yoga practice and learned plenty about my limits through injury and pushing myself too hard. Super good lessons.

Today starts Year Five - I'm going straight up Vegan - no further restrictions food wise. All the King Candy games were deleted from my phone and social media will be limited to 3x per day. Unless I'm folding laundry or watching with someone else, the TV will remain off and I'll detox from my Netflix binges.

This year's binge feast included:
Hart of Dixie
Gilmore Girls
Downton Abbey (Amazon Prime)
When Calls the Heart
One Tree Hill
Royal Pains
Cedar Cove
White Collar
And various Season 1/Episode 1s that didn't make the binge cut.
How did I fit all of that TV watching in with being a YL leader, mom of 4, wife, occasional substitute teacher, yoga, yoga teacher training, and traveling? I have NO idea. I just have issues...that's what.

Kelly's Day ONE...AGAIN.

Welcome Back, faithful "beyond vegan-ers." Yeah...No. We are gonna have to come up with a better name, but that's an aside.

It's Lent...again.
We're doing it...again.
Why? ...no idea.
Actually, I have an idea. It goes like this: Kristin and I are BFFs (that's Best Friends Forever, in case you did NOT grow up in America, where every elementary aged girl bought that Best/Friends heart necklace from Claire's and gave it to a girl who ended up losing it). We come up with these ideas sometimes that sound like a better idea before you jump into it. For example, the Polar Bear Challenge, or that time I said, "Why don't you just drive down (an 8 hour drive)...TODAY," to which she replied, "Okay!" Consequently, she showed up six hours later. She drives like a bat Straight outta Compton (jk). She drives like a bat outta hell. Pray for her and for those in the car with her, and for those driving on the road around her, and for the guys working in those "SLOW DOWN-KEEP US ALIVE" zones. Just pray, people, okay? Sheesh! I don't know why we do the things we do. It keeps us on our toes, and it make her feel like she's not so dang far away. In case you don't know us, I'm in South Carolina. She's in Pennsylvania, and if you don't know WHY this friendship exists, neither did the Confederates and the Yankees, folks. Get over it.

Anyway. We have sort of switched things up again, and I'm already not sure it's going to work out for me. We decided to add grains this year, so for those of you who couldn't quite understand when we told you in years past that we are ONLY eating fruits, veggies, beans and nuts, to which you replied, "OH, the Daniel Fast," to which WE replied, "NO. Do your homework. Daniel ate grains." NOW...go ahead and ask us if it's a Daniel fast. I would say yes this year. And, it might prompt me to read the book of Daniel, which I have tried to steer clear of since Beth Moore turned it into what seemed like Astrophysics to me with her bible study.

Thanks to my new friend, Jada, who make some MAD juice that I order from her on Tuesdays and Fridays, I had 20 oz of green juice today, some rice crackers and some rice. I'm planning to eat some more rice and then some oats and grains for dinner, and then maybe some more rice. See the problem? The grains might have to go. I'll see how it goes.

So, there we have it. We're at it again. We will blog again. We will hopefully fill you up with inspiration and fun times along the way...I mean, aren't you inspired to take a road trip to visit your bestie or to run to Claire's to buy her a BFF necklace already? I AM! !)

But, to get to the heart of this fast, it's all for LOVE. The story of Jesus is the greatest love story of all time, and after teaching on 1 Corinthians 13 last night, I saw it in a new light.

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, 'Jump,' and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love." 1 Cor. 13 The Message 

This hit home last night. Do you mean to tell me that I can give great speeches, I can pray and have faith that will move MOUNTAINS, I can give EVERYTHING away, I can be martyred, but if I'm NOT ABOUT LOVE, 

I.

AM.

NOTHING?!!!

Answer: Yes.

Ouch.