The new year

My cousin wrote last week about a fast she is going to do starting tomorrow. The 21 day Daniel Fast. It is a fast that Daniel did in the Old Testament for 3 weeks, or 21 days. When I first read about it I saw that he started this fast for 10 days but then ended up doing it for 3 weeks. So, that's what I might do. Start on 1/1/11 and end on 1/11/11.

Basically, the idea is to start the new year by cleansing and renewing. This particular fast is eating vegan and only having water to drink (or soy milk). It means giving up two of my favorite things... coffee and chocolate. I don't even drink regular coffee, but I'm definitely going to miss it. It keeps me warm. It is yummy. But I'll deal.

Anyway, this week has been one of reflection for me. I'm also looking forward. So, this fits right into where I'm at right now. How are you handling the new year?

Happy New Year... :)

Also, I'm reading two new books. One of which is called Adopting the Hurt Child. I'm not reading it because of Lil M or adoption, per se. I'm reading it to keep up on my training hours for fostering. It's good so far and I'll try to post a review when I'm done. What I said about parenting a hurt child differently than a protected child is what they write about. I recognize that the hurting children need a safe place and that normally people don't understand where they are coming from. They see the bad behavior but not the reason behind it. We must look at the hurt child and know that they are NOT coming from the same place we came from. They didn't have relationships like we had growing up. Even when we think our lives were dysfunctional, theirs are 100 TIMES worse. We can't even imagine what they've been through, and frankly, most of us don't want to either. And if we can't make ourselves go there or be conscious of those situations, then we'll always parent from where WE came from. But we must parent from where THEY came from. Meet them where they are. Just like Jesus meets us where we are in our brokenness. That's my $.02 for today. :)

Blessings and Peace.