Day 1-Our Family Relationship with God

Hello all or anyone! My husband and I have decided to go on the adventure of going on the Daniels Fast. What is the Daniels Fast? Well it is based off of Daniel 10:1-3 in the Bible which states:

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel (who was called Belteshazzar). Its message was true and it concerned a great war.[fn] The understanding of the message came to him in a vision.At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks.I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips...
So this has taken on a fast that has come into popularity as of late. This is what the site that I have read the most about it on stated about what the fast is: WHAT IS THE DANIEL FAST? The Daniel Fast is a biblically based partial fast. It is a method of fasting that men, women and young people all over the world are using as they enter into the spiritual discipline of prayer and fasting. There are two anchoring scriptures for the Daniel Fast. In Daniel 1 the Prophet ate only vegetables (that would have included fruits) and drank only water. So from these scriptures we get two of the guidelines for the fast: Only fruits and vegetables Only water for a beverage Then in Daniel 10 we read that the Prophet ate no meat nor any precious breads or foods and he drank no wine for 21 days. So from this scripture, we get a third guideline: No sweeteners and no breads Another important guideline is drawn from Jewish fasting principles, where no leaven is used during the fast. So that’s why yeast, baking powder and the like are not allowed on the Daniel Fast. Finally, with all the above puzzle pieces, we conclude that no artificial or processed foods nor any chemicals are allowed on the Daniel Fast. When asked about the eating plan on the Daniel Fast, I often say it is a “vegan diet with even more restrictions.” Be sure to read the ingredients on labels of prepared foods to make sure they only include Daniel Fast friendly ingredients. So it is mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole wheats, nuts, and water to drink. We look on this fast as a time to really focus on our family, marriage and our three children individually. With school starting in two and a half weeks for our oldest Jackson and our daughter Lily starting kindergarten soon after that we felt it was time to really come to God and truly sacrifice for our family and to grow closer to God and to make sure we are following His direction for our family. So we started the journey today. I will show what we ate, how we are feeling and what we focused on praying for during this day. For breakfast I enjoyed a lovely oatmeal with walnuts and bananas, in all honesty I did not eat much of it, walnuts did not really do well for me but I ate enough to fill me up.  For lunch I ate some bell peppers and hummus and afterwards a banana with pure peanut butter.  And for Dinner I put raspberries in my water, we had whole wheat flat bread and corn and spinach bisque.

So I need to be honest.....I am a Diet Coke loving girl. I also love me some donuts and fries. And candy always seems to get the best of me. And I did not do what the books suggested and slowly cut off caffeine and all the other processed crap I eat. Nope I went all out and had so many diet cokes that I couldn't count, a donut for breakfast and then Chinese for dinner yesterday.

God is so good though, and while I have had an underlying headache, I have not had the detox reaction that I thought I would have. Chris felt the same and every time I'm craving something I really have been focusing on using that as a prayer initiator to focus on why we are doing this and as a sacrifice for my family. 

Tonight Chris and I had a Bible study/prayer time focusing on our Family's relationship with God. We studied Ephesians 5:21 through 6:4 which was perfect as right before we had to send our older two kids to bed early for refusing to help out and overall just being disrespectful. But I encourage all parents to really ask yourself why you are setting rules in your house and how you are enforcing them. We live in a small apartment and often are yelling at the kids to keep it down, even though they are having fun, being nice to each other and just being kids. Why do we get so upset when they are loud? Because we prefer it that way. I never want to squash my child's spirit because of a personal preference of mine. 

Now that does not mean we don't have rules, quite the contrary, most people believe that we are too strict. However, bringing children (and lets be honest - myself) to exasperation is not what God has asked me to do, and trying to bring them up in training and instruction in the way of the Lord to going to be my focus.  Day 1 down!