"Dirty Spirit?"

Have you ever looked in the mirror and not been able to recognize the reflection staring back at you? At some point in our lives I believe we all experience a time such as this. It is at the moment when looking into the face of a familiar stranger that you ask yourself, "What am I supposed to do now?" That is a good question; what are you supposed to do? Better yet what are you GOING to do? Are you going to continue going down the same path which obviously isn't the right one or are you going to take a different road and see does it lead to better days? Personally, I have come to this fork in the road many times and every time I say I am going to take the different path, but somehow I always end up right back where my journey for self discovery began.
Recently I experienced one of this life moments, where the reflection in the mirror was not my own. I was no longer looking into the face of a talented columnist or a lively personality, instead I was looking into the dark circles and pale skin of a thin worn out woman who looked nothing near the age of 24. When faced with times such as these it isn't good to try to tackle everything alone, sometimes you need some positive reinforcement. Now friends, family and loved ones are always good for support but sometimes the support they give just isn't enough you have to go deeper. For me, I hit rock bottom fell my knees and called on the LORD. It was time for a spiritual makeover.
Never in all my years of attending church have I fully committed to and honored a "Fast". Which the purpose of a fast is to take our eyes off the world and focus on GOD. Fasting demonstrates to GOD and ourselves that we are serious about our relationship with HIM. For myself, the first step to my self healing and improvement is to admit that I have a problem and indeed need help. Considering this is my blog and I have little to hide I am going to document my 30 day fast in all its pain and glory. My fast includes no eating of pork, beef, no soda of any kind, no Red Bull and limited use of the social networking site "Twitter." These are the reasons behind choosing those things to stray from:

Pork and beef are unhealthy for the body period, however for someone with underlining health issues it can be even more detrimental to my health if consumed in large quantities. (which often times I will eat steak 2-3 times a week.) Soda is just bad for my skin and my bladder/kidneys and urinary tract. Sometimes flushing the system is a good thing, ridding the body of those impurities. Red Bull, for the past 3 years this has been an addiction. A very bad one, which has put me in an altered state of mind many times, caused me to have heart palpitations and headaches for days. And lastly, Twitter, I'm sure someone is reading this thinking how the hell can an Internet site be bad for your health. Well for me it is, I tend to want to vent and air my frustrations without actually having to deal with the issue so I will take my problems at that moment and fuss about it on Twitter. This does nothing but put unnecessary people in my business and add more madness and mayhem to my life and when it's all over the problem still exists and I haven't dealt with shit! The need for attention for me is an addiction as well and by not going to Twitter or giving myself limited use of the site I am forced to deal with whatever is going on in my life at that moment head on. If I can't deal with it then I have no choice but to ask for GOD's help, because in reality the problems that I have are not too big or too small for HIM. Like the song says "While you trynna figure it out, HE already worked it out!"
I am not going on this journey alone, my friend Stacey has decided to embark with me, with a few altered approaches to better fit her life and situation. Fasting is not just about not eating certain foods or doing certain acts, it is about getting closer to GOD. Using the time you would to do other things to pray and talk to him. I am going to update on my progress and the changes as I go at them head on. We shall see!!! So far it has been 4 days and I have yet to crave a soda, or red meat and I have only tweeted about 10 times as apposed to 10 in 5 minutes. I am still working on my conversations with HIM but they will come because I claimed it!!
~B~