WrestleMania last night was such a blast

I cannot believe that I attended WrestleMania! What an amazing show. I had planned out the entire trip for months and it finally came. And knowing that I had all day, there was no rush to try to get to the Stadium. But wow, it was so awesome to be there. The setup looked amazing and the atmosphere was electric.

The fact that the sun was out for most of the show was tough. I was in section 214 and the sun was on me for five hours. I had my binoculars and my sunglasses, cap so I was OK. Still, it was tough on me.

But to be part of something so amazing was juts indescribable. Visually, it was great. The matches were fun and the storyline as great.

Man I need prayer straight up for reals

I’m sitting here overwhelmed by a ton of stuff. I got so much going on and I don’t know if I am in the right place.

My frustration continues to come with people not being responsible. In turn, I have to clean up their mess and that affects the important things I need to do. My heart is not in the right place. I can’t find my balance of being sympathetic and being firm.

Then I got so many responsibilities that I still have to do and I know that I have to do it all on my own. Asking people for help isn’t helpful because those people aren’t reliable.

Then I have to start worrying about other things. Ironically, it’s prayer responsibilities that I have to do and I need prayer because I am going to tip over.

God, please calm my heart. It’s OK to be angry, but don’t let that override my connection with you. May you give me all that I need and allow those people I have to depend on everything they need. May I not complain of my problems but celebrate in your deliverance instead. Thank you. Amen.

21-day fast and prayer testimonies

For 21 days I fasted and spent my time praying. What happened? Check out my story and four other friends who did the same thing. God did some great things!

Now what’s next?

My crew these days are basically board and card gamers for life.

I am not sure if this is the official announcement of what’s next for me after the 21-day fast. I can tell you that on Sunday, I ate three cookies. It was actually the first time in three weeks I had sweets, snacks or anything of that nature. It was really good. Then afterward, I regretted eating so many of them. But that’s small potatoes compared to what I will endure next.

Even though the 21-day fasting period is over, it still doesn’t mean that I can go back to my old ways. I am still doing OSL and that remains as the tough part for me. I still will be off media mostly for the entire duration of the remaining two weeks. Because of the two-hour limit per week the OSL guideline allows, I decided to watch some old TV shows last night. It wasn’t anything to binge on, rather I was at a state where I needed to feel some emotion. I ended up watching an episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” where Will’s father abandoned him. I needed to cry. Then I watched “Family Matters” and the episode where Carl is living with guilty of a death of a victim in a shooting. I equally wanted to cry some more last night. I have no idea why I was compelled to do that. I didn’t go over my two-hour limit and this morning I thought that maybe I could have resisted it more. But a part of me wanted to just cry last night and that was the trigger.

But what’s next? Yesterday the crew played some board games as I worked. It was a nice thing for me and it reminded me that there is a certain bond with the fellowship I have with these guys who so happen to be in my Life Group. It’s growing to be this really amazing bond of care and enjoyment with one another. I want this to continue and transition into something more amazing.

Day 21 of the 21-day fast: Completion

Took a picture of my lunch.

Today was the last day of the fast and it was one of the busiest days. I had to wake up for the morning prayer, which went to over about an hour. Then it was OSL since we didn’t do it on Tuesday. Then it was volunteer appreciation day at the park (with tacos) and after being out in the sun for about five hours, it was board game night in which I brought work with me.

Physically I am exhausted, but spiritually, I know that I am closer to God then I was three weeks ago. I think that during this time of fasting, I was able to really avoid all the snacking that I usually do (and I’ve lost weight) and really focus on God. Also, it gave me a lot of time to meditate and pray and because of that, there is a whole lot of changes that will go on with me. My focus is strong and my desire for God has become stronger too.

So what now after this fast? Well, I can tell you that I can easily go another week without snacking. In fact, the snacking has been something I don’t care much about anymore.

Day 20 of the 21-day fast: Hello, sweetness, my old friend

Friendly front yards in my neighborhood during my walk.

You know what I don’t like to do and I try to avoid it whenever it comes up: a countdown. And this is the situation I am in. This fast will come to an end tomorrow for me and my fasting of sweets and snacking in between meals will end. I don’t want to count down, but here I am doing it. I want to avoid it. I don’t want to take away the dedication of the fast and crawl back like some addict.

Let me tell you what it’s been like not snacking, not having sweets for almost three weeks. When I am out hanging with friends who want to go get boba or something like that, I have to sit there and not order anything and watch them eat. Not easy.

Then we have dinner together and someone brings cookies. I can’t have any. And last night at the end of dinner there were two more slices of pizza left. Can’t have it.

It actually wasn’t as tough for me to resist all that during the three weeks. In fact, because of it, I actually think I’ve lost weight. I’ve upgraded a notch on my belt. But as I get closer to tomorrow, I have to think about what I have learned in this fast and how I am approaching the end of it. Do I just binge on sweets when it ends? I don’t want to. Yet today they had extra cookies and pretzel buns for me to take home. Oh the temptation. But I think I can control it. If I can hold off on it the day after, then maybe I can win it going forward.

Day 19 of the 21-day fast: Now I know what God has been telling me

Remember how I explained in Day 7 how God answered a prayer for me? At that time, God had just put in my heart that prayer was going to be an even bigger essential in my life. I had attempted to pray diligently but it was still hard. Yet I knew that prayer had to be a bigger part of my life and doing the morning prayers was exactly what pushed me in that direction. God spoke to me, telling me that prayer is the way that I need to take the next step in my faith. About 45 minutes after that, I got a text asking me to lead a morning prayer.

I was so happy and I thought that was the prayer answered from God. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was a precursor to bigger things to come. At this time, I can’t go into detail as to what exactly will happen, as it is still a developing situation, but I can reveal this: My prayer life is on the up and up. I had been pushed by God to take my prayer life seriously and in order to do that, I should find myself as a leader. No longer can I just wait for a situation to pray. Instead, every situation is worth a prayer time. Every situation is worth a time for me to come to God with any and everything thing of my life. And it is on me to lead others to great prayer.

So with this, I know that in the very near future, I will be leading prayer with many great warriors. The capacity is yet to be known, but God has already guided me on this path of prayer. And with that, I know this is exactly what God has in store for me. My life in prayer is going to get way more awesome.

Day 18 of the 21-day fast: Morning focus on God

Yesterday, I talked about how I couldn’t really get a good grasp on my focus on God. I had spent my entire morning mostly just working on my story. Which is fine really but I didn’t allow more time for God to be in my morning. I needed to get my morning focus on God. So this morning, I woke up for morning prayer. Once again, I didn’t have enough sleep prior to it since I came back from basketball. But I did the morning prayer, which is still very good for me. Then I fell back asleep.

I awoke at 9:45am super refreshed. And I knew that the morning will be dedicated to God. In the morning, I got a chance to do my morning devotionals. Then I did my 21-day fast devotional. Then I did my daily reading of Acts. Then I did my 10-minute prayer. Then finally, I listened to the next sermon for my OSL program and it was a long sermon about the Spirit. In essence, it reminded me that I will sin regardless if I am a believer or not. That is how the flesh operates and I can’t prevent myself from sinning. However, even if I do sin, that doesn’t mean I don’t go to heaven. Because if I am one with the Holy Spirit, then whatever my flesh does, will not prevent me from losing that relationship with God. Yes, I still want to avoid sinning but sin won’t be the end all for me. The most important thing is that I strive to maintain a strong relationship with God. That’s what I need to do.

By then, my entire morning was spent on Him. What a great way for me to start off my day.

Day 17 of the 21-day fast: We’re meetin’ and then we’re ballin’

The things I see during my morning walks listening to Christian music and sermons. You see the bee?

It was the same routine for me today. I woke up for the morning prayer and because I once again was so tired, I went right back to sleep afterward. The morning prayer has still been really good to me but even when I try to get at least seven hours of sleep, sometimes it isn’t easy. I toss and turn during the night and so I lose some time there. By the morning, I just don’t have the energy. It’s too cold and I just want to stay warm.

However, the day did start off pretty well when I eventually awoke. I did spend some of my time completing my OSL tasks for the week. We didn’t meet today but I did complete all of my tasks except for inviting someone to church and inviting someone to OSL. That’s not easy, especially since I have to explain what OSL is.

Anyway, I did spend most of my morning Google image searching for my writing project. I like to be a creative writer and I already have written to fake Rolling Stone stories. Today I found more photos of my new muse and did some photoshopping just to see what I was working with. It actually was a good time waster for me. I felt like I was challenging my creativity and I did some more in the afternoon, writing and photoshopping. I really am excited about this story that I am working on and it may be the hardest one for me.

Day 16 of the 21-day fast: I’m just here for the BBQ which they ran out of

Running through the rain.

Because I didn’t get home until late last night, I was running on very little energy when I woke up for morning prayer. But I toughed it out and it actually was a really good time of just praying for one another. These morning prayers are great and in fact if it continued past the 21-day fast, I’d still join in every morning. Nothing beats starting off my morning with God and in prayer.

But I was so exhausted I went right back to sleep afterward. When I woke up, I decided I still need to go out for my routine walk. The trek is about an hour around my neighborhood. But when I was almost halfway there, it started to rain. I knew that was a possibility since I checked the weather update. But I chanced it and it started to rain. So I kind of tried to run back home. It didn’t pour too much but it still was a good amount of rain.

By the time I was halfway back home to get out of the rain, I decided to take one photo of the rain. That’s what you see above.