A Place at the Table, day 38, 39, 40

So here we are.  In what seems like an unbelievable turn of events, I have survived the 40 day "A Place at the Table" fast with a minimal amount of damage.  As a matter of fact, there have been several positive things that have come out of this fast, just from a physical perspective.  We'll start this blog post with the two big advantages of this fast for me physically and we'll see where the blog goes from there.

Advantage #1: I learned to like beans.
I know this seems like such a minor detail, but for those of you who know how dadgum picky I am, this is a pretty huge deal.  This is going to be of extra significance to me because of where I currently live.  Every other restaurant in Lubbock is a Mexican restaurant, and my ability to get meaningful sides with my quesadillas, tacos, and fajitas is going to greatly increase my opportunities to leave a restaurant full.  I should no longer have to keep my main course separated from the sides, lest the thing that I like get "infected" by the things that I don't.  I could legitimately go to Abuelo's and eat a meal that included no meat and still walk out full.  The implications of this are life-changing.  I hope.

Advantage #2: I lost a bunch of weight.
This is the easiest advantage to behold.  Over the last few weeks especially I have gotten comments on how much weight I have lost.  My insurance guy caught me in the grocery store today and commented on it.  I've actually been losing weight since November (there's a story to it -- you should ask me some time!), and have only lost about 10-12 pounds on this fast.  But I guess it was the kind of weight loss that shows up in my face, which has led to the increase of comments.  I am now (at least according to my scale) at the weight that I should max out at for my age and height.  It's pretty sad that it takes a 40-day fast to get me down to where I should have been maxed out.  But it does feel good to be here.

Now, as far as the other advantages, I feel like I have only just begun to reap benefits in other areas of my life.  There have been days in the past several years when I have wondered if I was disciplined enough to do anything for a week, let alone 40 days.  This experience has shown me that I do, indeed, have that level of discipline.  And I just can't get away from the linguistic tie between "discipline" and "disciple."  Maybe I do have what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus after all.

The camaraderie that has been formed in our little group during this 40 days has been unreal, even for those who weren't able to participate in the fast.  I don't really understand where this level of community came from or how we got there, but it has been phenomenal for us.  It was the absolute BEST way to begin a journey together, and I even feel like this fast is going to inform where our community goes from here.

Even though the blog will change from being focused on the fast to being more holistic, I feel like the topics and discussions and conclusions that I come to in these writings will be informed by what went down during this fast.  So thanks, Chris Seay (like he reads this!) for having the courage to experience this fast yourself a year ago and for writing it down for others of us to be a part of.  Thanks to those of you who stuck with this blog and encouraged me along the way to keep writing.  And thanks to this little community that enacted this fast together and was there to whine and complain about it with me.  I am so excited about where we go from here.  I mean, after Feaster!!!!!