What I Love About Lent
Lent is one of my favorite times of the year — crazy, especially because it coincides with my least-favorite of the seasons, Spring.
There are lots of cool blogs out there with ideas about different things to give up or take on for Lent. Whatever sacrifices you decide to make, think about how they will impact your relationships - with God, with others, and with yourself.
Lent gives us the opportunity to examine at our lives and see what we’ve become attached to, what habits we’ve formed, and what good virtues we’ve fallen out of. And yes, these are all things we should constantly be examining and improving, but Lent gives us a very clear and accountable time to make the changes that we know we should already be making.
My freshman year of college, I “gave up” jaywalking and using my phone while walking across campus. It’s incredible how many more people I saw, conversations I had, and positive interactions I made, even if it was just making eye contact and smiling. The same year, my husband gave up being indecisive, and it was awesome! It didn’t mean he took charge of everything, but it forced him to be intentional and offer suggestions instead of resorting to “I don’t know” or “whatever”.
The best thing I ever did was the Lent right after my son was born - I gave up holding my phone while nursing. Notice the phone trend, here… while I do intentionally try to be off my phone at times and I don’t think phones are evil in and of themselves, I find myself using it as a comfort and an escape, whether that be from silence, from the people physically around me, or from life in general. My phone became my “me time”. There are so many healthy and productive ways to spend time on yourself, and that’s something I’m still learning and working on… but that Lent, having such consistent time to focus on my son, pray, sit in silence, or converse with the people who were actually around me… it shouldn’t have made such a difference, but it did!
And this is what I mean - my life should have already looked like that, but it took “giving up” something for Lent for me to realize how badly I had become attached to things that just ate up my time and filled in my silence.
Today, take the time to think about what you’ve become attached to and how you can better your relationships. It doesn’t always mean “giving up”, but maybe setting limits or exchanging one thing for another. Instead of 30 minutes of TV time every night, go for a walk (better relationship with self). Put the phone away when people are around (better relationship with others). Read the Bible for 10 minutes every morning (better relationship with God). There are millions of ideas out there, and so many little things you can do to become the person you actually want to be!