Beautiful Serendipity
Thank you for your patience over the holiday season and already well into this new year. (And Happy New Year, btw.) I always tell my pals that they are allowed to live their lives apart from me — I take no offense to our time apart. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for the same.
I hope your holiday season was filled with as much and more laughter and love and delicious food as ours was. And if it was painful (I’ve endured through those holidays, too), I pray it’s served to strengthen you.
Since adulting, I try to start each calendar year with a season of consecration. It’s my alternative way of tithing, beginning the year by offering my “first-fruit.” My interpretation of Jesus’s remarks about tithing found in Mark 12:17, is that
Tithing has less to do with our finances, and more to do with our lives.
(As a personal rule, I tithe my finances, too.)
For me, fasting is an opportunity to tithe me.
To kick off and mark my 40th trip around the sun, I decided that this year I’d conquer my first 40-day fast. And this past weekend, I completed it.
No meat, no sweets and no social media for 40-days. In lieu of these things, I talked to God whenever I had a craving, and filled the free time I’d normally spend scrolling, reading, reflecting, being present with our spawn, and editing.
I edited most of Zo’s Quest, actually, but didn’t stop there…
It was beautiful, and terrible because God used this season to grow me.
Like hacking through the most eloquent soliloquy that simply doesn’t read well, growth (especially growth that’s long overdue!) is painful. There was a lot of ugly that I had to face head on, and if I can be really vulnerable, I’m still working through it…
I’m incredibly grateful that God loves me enough to expose hidden things that have held me back from the very best of me.
On my last day fasting, it just so happened that I was also editing chapter 40 of Zo’s Quest.
I realized that here at the end of my 40-day fast, marking my 40th year, I completed editing chapter 40 of my book, which coincidental as it would seem happens to detail the literal reflections of how far Zo’s traveled, how the path has changed her, and how she still has far to go…
Beautiful serendipity.
So I thank you again for your patience with me. Thank you for honoring me setting myself apart for a while. I’ll leave you with Zo’s own words from chapter 40:
“I’ve changed,” she says, nodding slowly, as she stands up and walks toward them. “I have a ways to go, but I’ve really changed.” (Zo’s Quest)