"Lent" Licker Lendy

My honorary Cajun status has been revoked.  Yesterday was Fat Tuesday and I didn't even know it, which consequently means that today is the first day of Lent.  I wouldn't have had any idea except my boo texted early this morning to tell me she had chosen to lay aside coffee for her Lent season.  I pondered for mere seconds what it would be like for me to give up coffee for 40 days, and swiftly came to the conclusion that it would lead to more un-Christ-like behavior than penitent prayer. 

Truth is I’m not clear on how this whole Lent thing works.  Growing up, the only “Lent” I knew about was spelled l-i-n-t and got caught in the dryer trap.  My mixed breed Baptist family did not observe Lent.  My friends in high school used Lent as a way to temporarily lose a few pounds from giving up fast food or soft drinks.  I got the idea Lent was about giving up unhealthy or negative habits that you were already trying to give up just that during those 40 days Jesus was watching you closer than normal.  How ridiculous right? Yet that was my attitude about practicing Lent until I went to graduate school and met some devout Catholics and Methodists who truly observe the season of Lent.  I found out that Lent is really about sacrifice, repentance, and drawing closer to God.  People generally lay something aside or give something up in order to spend more time intentionally seeking God or trusting in His strength to keep them from running back to what they have put down. 

Since I've come to grasp more clearly what Lent is about, I have sincerely tried to give something up that I really depended upon or that took time away from prayer and bible study each Lent season.  Some years have been more successful than others due to my weak flesh.  ("Watch an pray, lest you enter into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:41) Since this morning I've spent the better part of the day pondering what I can set aside or give up in order to draw closer to Him during this season.  There's the obvious... coffee, Facebook, my blog (y’all wish), running (L), etc.  My mind wanders back to how demanding my work and schedule have been for the past few weeks and I start thinking how incredibly impossible it seems to give up something I enjoy when everything else around me seems so hard.  I realized these thoughts suggest that my heart’s not trusting in His strength, and then another thought popped into this hard head...

Maybe I don’t need to take something away...maybe I need to add something. 

Lately I have felt so incredibly overwhelmed with work that every day is mainly just going through the motions in order to survive and advance.  For the past 2 weeks I walk through the door at night and simply say, “I got nothing left for today.” I don’t know if I can technically do this (because I don’t know ALL the Lent rules), but what I would like to do every day for the next 40 days is take time each day to write a note of love or encouragement to someone.  I want to trust God that when I say I don’t have time or I don’t have anything left that He will give me the words and make provision to make this happen.  Maybe my Lent project isn't conventional and maybe it doesn't follow the rules, but I’m hoping even though I’m adding something instead of subtracting something, “He will increase, and I will decrease.”   

So, if you would like to receive a little note in the next few weeks, don’t be shy... send me your address.  Do not feel presumptuous.  You’re helping me keep my Lent promise, and it’s really a privilege to be able to pray for y’all and offer up words of love and encouragement even if I have to borrow them from someone else because mine aren't all that sufficient.  J