Fasting Is A Good Thing. But For Some of Us, It’s Complicated.
For a time when I was a child, I wanted nothing unless it was grilled cheese—without the bread. My loving parents accommodated me by placing a special order when we went to restaurants. Eventually, I became a vegetarian after making the connection between the animals I professed to love and what was on my plate.
By the time I was a teenager, I ate a greater variety of dishes. But pickiness had given way to something more sinister. A friend and I ate burgers and fries, then guiltily pooled our money to buy a diet product called Trim Gum. My problematic relationship with food escalated after I left home for boarding school, an ocean away from my family. I went to great lengths to mask the fact that I had started throwing up after every meal.
Many factors contributed to my bulimia. I was a mixed-race girl who had grown up in Hong Kong, where grown-ups pinched children’s cheeks and openly body-shamed others. Supermodels reigned supreme in ’90s pop culture, enforcing waifish beauty standards. It didn’t help that I aspired to be a ballerina. Decades later, I’d learn of the link between disordered eating and neurodivergence; it’s common for autistic people like me to struggle with food in one way or another.
Into all this reached the loving arms of God. My illness was interrupted by amazing grace and a youth group full of new friends who provided me with the community I craved. It was a beautiful but sadly temporary reprieve: Eating disorders are resilient. They can morph and return like the unclean spirit in Matthew 12. And this happened to me in the guise of fasting.
Scripture contains dozens of references to fasting. The psalmist fasts (Ps. 69:10); the prophets fast (Ezra 8:23; Dan. 10:3; Neh. 1:4). Jesus went without food and water for 40 days in the wilderness (Matt. 4:2). In fasting, we give something up in order to deepen our dependence on God; we remove a meal or a drink and fill the space they leave behind with prayer.
But there are physical, mental, and social implications to fasting that can add up to major problems for anyone who has struggled with disordered eating. “When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen,” instructs Jesus, “and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matt. 6:17–18). For those with eating disorders, however, secrecy can derail recovery.
As a relatively new Christian in my early 20s, I took to fasting with zeal. It was mid-summer; I was training for a marathon and also undergoing a 40-day “Jesus” fast. I ran miles in the heat, then came home to shower and study the Bible, collapsing in an exhausted heap. I drank clear liquids but I did not eat. I don’t remember what I prayed for; I was simply interested in proving that God’s sustaining power was better fuel than food.
There’s no limit to the ways in which good things can, without care and community, distort into chaos and destruction. Neither the body nor the brain works as God intended unless they are cared for as God intended.
As a fit young person, there would be a delay before I felt the long-term physical consequences of this extreme deprivation. It was the psychological effects that first became apparent. Research shows that the quality and quantity of nutrition directly affect our brain’s neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers responsible for every facet of functioning. I was starving and dehydrated, and I quickly lost my grip on reality.
My descent into irritability and paranoia lasted a few short weeks; it ended when I landed in the local ER after a serious self-inflicted injury. The recovery process since has been an uphill slog. It’s taken years—and it’s taken supernatural levels of loving support from others.
For the first 15 years of my eating disorder recovery, I agreed with my husband: I would not fast. Not during Lent. Not during special times of prayer. I’d come to God in other ways: by reading the Bible and books on theology, listening to podcasts, and taking walks in nature.
On one hand, this wasn’t difficult. People tend to afford fasting (or its absence) some privacy.
On the other hand, it was difficult. The desire to fast never left me. I battled faulty logic, wanting to blame life’s troubles on my failure to give up food and drink. It was hard to shake the idea that if fasting could bring about a breakthrough, then not fasting could be the reason behind any number of problems. As a matter of survival, I had to hold this tension.
My fixation with fasting was more than an eating disorder running into hyper-religiosity. It was what the poet John Keats called an “irritable reaching for certainty.” If fasting could make my prayers more powerful, then there was something I could do to get the outcomes I wanted from God. Not fasting meant giving up a measure of control.
Grappling with this, I stumbled upon the essence of faith. I remembered that the cross was an unearned gift. God’s loving salvation is unconditional. I was loved, even if I never fasted another day in my life.
You’re still here even though I didn’t fast? My prayers assumed a playful tone. Responding in kind, God proved himself as I completed my doctoral studies, a miracle I’d previously thought impossible without fasting. I got on with my life, banking all my faith in a grace that exists in spite of failure.
Instead of fretting about eating or not eating, I allowed God to engage me with art and music. He nourished me with words of life from the Bible and great literature. He drew my family to a healthy church community where we contributed what we could while feeling safe to say no when needed. If the topic of fasting came up, I willed myself to disengage. When thoughts of spiritual discipline came with feelings of obligation, I sensed the Holy Spirit: I love you, don’t do me any favors. My recovery was centered on God’s unmerited grace.
That said, complete freedom around food is an ideal I haven’t yet reached. Instead, I struggle on, remembering Paul with the thorn in his side and the Lord’s words to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
This could be the end of the story: I opt out of fasting due to my complicated history with food. For two decades, this was my safe and appropriate stance. There is no shame if the same is the case for you or someone you know.
But in recent years, I’ve felt ready to revisit fasting. There is no overstating the importance of time, which has allowed for gradual healing and greater maturity. Twenty years on, my genuine desire for spiritual formation now grows safely alongside a stubborn commitment to mental and physical health.
This season unfolds under the watchful eyes of my husband, doctors, and therapist. Now, I compare fasting to exercise: It’s not compulsory, but it is beneficial when done for the right reasons and with proper care. People with physical injuries or disabilities might require special accommodations and should use them without shame. I have learned to afford myself the same grace in fasting.
Through experimentation, I’ve found some strategies that work for me. I abstain from solids only; my fasts are shorter; I use nutritional supplementation; I break fasts guilt-free if I feel my motivation veer. I try to let my hunger serve as a call to prayer.
There are new challenges too, such as feeding my family on fast days and being honest with my teens, who are still in their formative years.
I am on track for the 40-day fast I was interested in all those years ago, but the 40 days aren’t consecutive; I’ve been at it for two years already. I have faith that this is fine.
Fasting as a spiritual practice can bring numerous benefits as we heed the call in 1 Corinthians to glorify God in body and spirit. But access to these benefits is complicated for some of us. As we Christians press into spiritual formation, my hope is that we hold space for the community around us, made up of stories and recovery journeys that we might never know.
Jacinta Read is a writer, artist, and neurodiversity advocate. She serves as the Connections Pastor at Vintage Church Pasadena.
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