On Ash Wednesday, two days ago I went and was "ashed" at church. This was a totally different experience. I went to the Ash Wednesday service last year too, but this moved me in a whole new way. Somewhere between singing some of my favorite hymns and having the ashes placed on my forehead, God got through to me. I realized that I came from God and that in the end, I will be returned to God, but that it is in the time between the two in which life is lived. That period of living is a long string of mundane, punctuated with exciting and dramatic events. But it is between those exciting moments that we have the most opportunity to grow closer to God.
I had spent part of the day struggling with what I was going to give up, and I didn't really want to reprise any of the previous several years of giving things up. Coffee, chocolate, television... I'd done it all before. None of it really made any difference except for my level of caffeine withdrawal. As I headed to church directly from work, I was going through the list of things that I commonly hear people say that they are going to give up. It went something like: Well, I could give up chocolate... Nope. Had that today. I could give up coffee... Had that too. Books that don't challenge me to grow spiritually? Nope. Read part of that book this morning.
I had still been fighting with God over what it was that I was going to do before I got to church. I really felt that He was saying that I should give "last year's book" another season, another chance. I really, Really, REALLY didn't want to. Who voluntarily engages in a difficult book that comes with a difficult course of action more that once? Apparently, this girl. It was after the service while I was getting ready for bed that God was able to bring me around to his point of view: I'm in a different place this year and what I take from the book is going to have some entirely new meanings for me.
Last year, I read the book A Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster for Lent. Pushing myself to read this book in the first place was a challenge. I struggled a lot with it, because some of these disciplines were things that I would rather not think about. This year, I'm readdressing this book in a different way. I had started to practice them during Lent as I learned about them. This time, I'll be taking them ALL head on. And with some not so gentle prodding from God, I'm actually kind of excited about it.
In this Lenten season, I have chosen to fast on Fridays. I chose Fridays for a variety of reasons, including some health related ones. I know that with my blood sugar issues, a full water fast is very difficult. I still want to do this, though. As a result, I have decided that I will fast from the conclusion of dinner on Thursday to the beginning of dinner on Friday. I will not break this unless I see that my body cannot handle it, but part of doing this on Fridays is that if I find myself struggling through because of the blood sugar concerns, I can stop whatever else I am doing and break the fast early.
I also am hoping to be able to make my Friday dinners "meat free." Yes, I want to attempt the Catholic "Fish Friday." This may mean a lot of tuna sandwiches, while I watch others in my family eat meals that I normally enjoy, but I'm eager to try this. I actually got the idea from one of my students, who is Catholic. She is giving up her favorite tv show for Lent, along with going to extra services at her church each week and observing the traditional fasts and eating only fish on Friday. If a teenage girl can be that interested in growing closer to God, there can be no excuse for me being too lazy to develop a closer relationship with God as well.
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