Savannah Guthrie Fasts from Instagram for Lent
By Movieguide® Contributor
TODAY anchor Savannah Guthrie plans to fast from Instagram for Lent.
Movieguide® previously reported on her Lent plans:
TODAY Show anchor Savannah Guthrie recently announced that she plans to give up Instagram for Lent.
While Lent officially starts next week, Guthrie explained that her Instagram fast began on February 15.
“I’m not catholic, and I’ve never given up anything for lent before,” Guthrie said of her decision. “I’m doing it to challenge myself: to be more reflective, to not just reflexively scroll instagram and instead use that time for something more productive and life-giving to myself and others.”
She continued, “I’m telling you this so that I will have accountability!! And maybe you would like to join me?? See you back here after Easter!”
She then added that any “work related posts” would be shared by her assistant.
A new version of the post contained an updated caption: “UPDATE: Savannah just found out lent starts next week, but the instagram fast starts day!”
Guthrie has spoken about her faith before, including the inspiration the Bible gives her. Movieguide® previously reported:
TODAY Show anchor Savannah Guthrie opened up about the inspiration and hope Scripture gives here in a personal essay written for Guideposts.
Guthrie wrote about her struggles as she navigated new life challenges, from losing loved ones, taking on new jobs, and becoming a new mom.
Guthrie’s father died of a heart attack when she was just 16, and “it felt like a betrayal of everything I’d believed in. How could God let this happen to my dad – a good man who was only in his forties? How could he do this to our family?”
“It would have been easy, and maybe understandable, for me to turn away from God,” she wrote. “But my faith became more essential to me than ever. Somehow, God comforted me.”
Guthrie relied on her faith as she continued to grow, taking jobs in new cities and worrying about where life would take her next.
“Each morning in D.C., I’d wake up and read the Bible,” she said, referring to her time at Georgetown, where she earned a law degree. “In a little notebook, I started writing down verses that particularly spoke to me. On nights that I worried about a tough exam or the future that felt so uncertain, I’d turn to those verses to help me sleep, or calm my anxious heart.”
Guthrie’s professional life continued to flourish, but she faced issues in her personal life. Her first marriage ended after three years and Guthrie found herself wondering if she would ever get the chance to start a family of her own.
“Will I ever have a happy family, like the one I grew up in? I wondered. That was when one particular verse in my notebooks, Psalm 62:8, became my watchword: ‘Trust in him at all times. Pour out your hearts to him,’” Guthrie wrote. “I certainly did. I turned my loneliness, my frustration, my mistakes, over to God and told myself to be patient – not something that comes naturally to me.”
Guthrie met her now-husband shortly after, and the couple soon welcomed their first child, a daughter named Vale.
“At 42, I’d been waiting my whole life to have a baby,” Guthrie shared. “Every time I woke in the night for a feeding or heard Vale sigh in her sleep, I felt a fresh rush of gratitude for this incredible blessing from God. But was I doing a good job?”
After a night when she struggled to give her daughter a bath, Guthrie was feeling discouraged, but then, “I noticed my Scripture notebooks, lying beside my rocking chair, and as has happened so often in my life, a beloved verse I had scrawled down suddenly came to mind: Ecclesiastes 3:11. ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time.’ Yes. Vale was proof of that.”
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