It's that time again: Lenten planning

Lent is coming.  It's a time for contemplation and sacrifice.  It's a time of patience.  It's that time in the dreary days of the end of winter when the cold weather is no longer a novelty and overcast days just make a person care that much less about wearing pajamas in public.  Everything feels gray and gray seems to have no ending.  Any snow on the ground is brown.  That is when Lent, a time of penitence, rolls in. 

Wierdly, it is usually my favorite time of the church calendar, because there are many deeply enriching traditions in my faith that go with the season.  Pancake suppers, ashes in the shape of a cross on the forehead, sacrifice, devotionals, Wednesday soup dinners, Bible study, palms branches and singing, stripping of the Cross, foot washings, Seder meals, stations of the Cross, candlelight mass, a break the fast party, and then glorious Easter Sunday.  All that crammed into forty six days.

However, this year I am not feeling it.  We are a soccer family, and soccer games keep falling on Sunday.  We are emptying ourselves and struggling to fill ourselves back up.  I frankly feel a bit unmotivated and a bit downtrodden trying to be Christ like when I'm not even going to church to get reminded again why I need to behave like Christ.  Which makes me realize that this year more than ever, I need Lent.

Last year, we gave up anger and shopping, and I wrote here for forty days.  This year I don't feel strong enough to give up anger and shopping, and though yes, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, I'm still not up to it.


So here's this year's plan:

1.  We will have nightly devotionals as a family.
2.  I will again share daily on my blog for forty days.  (This means Sunday is still a day of rest.)
3.  I will pray.
4.  We will give up meat on Fridays.  Sushi is just considered bait in York County, SC, so we might have some on the occasional Friday....

***Please feel free to join us in any or all of our journey this year.***