Ash Wednesday 2012: Day 1

Luckily, this year I did not give up anger.  If that had happened, I would have already failed miserably at Lent.  Instead, I took up praying - which, between cursing under my breath, I have made half ditch efforts to do today - and writing.

With this shoot bang start to Lent, I declare the word work for the day is abundance.  Friendships do not need be either or.  Christ offers His grace to us all - even our enemies.  Love does not have to be only when it's easy.  Christ loves us - even when we don't follow His rules.  Forgiveness is not a finite number.  He forgives us over and over and over again.  And so, His abundance should overflow out of us and into this world.  Should.  It's just that sometimes this abundance smells a bit like responsibility, and we tend to shy away from such odors.  And in our selfishness and our inability to let our cup run over, we cause hurt and loneliness and anger.  We become unable to see the abundance constantly shed on us.  We become blind.

So today, I am reminding myself that God is abundant.  Abundant enough to give us His son.  Abundant enough to love us when we loved Him.  Abundant enough to love us when we hated Him.  Abundant enough to keep forgiving us no matter what.  Abundant enough to grace us with blessings through all of it.  Abundant enough to be enough.  Just enough.  More than enough.  Enough to flow over.  Overflowing abundance.

Ultreya.

And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the foremost.  But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost,Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to beleive in him for eternal life.  To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.  Amen.

I Timothy 1:14-17