So long sweets...

Lent is a time of returning to God.  It is a time to confess how we keep looking for joy, peace, and satisfaction in the many people and things surrounding us without really finding what we desire.  Only God can give us what we want.  So we must be reconciled with God … The season of Lent, helps us in a special way to cry out for God’s mercy. –Henri Nouwen

 

 

 

"There comes a time in the spiritual life when one of the major things God is up to is to lovingly help us see ourselves more clearly. This is a time when we are called to wake up to the darkness within and invite the light of God’s presence to shine there. Just as winter and spring—light and darkness—seem to be fighting for dominance during this season of the earth, Lent is a spiritual season for seeing, naming and confessing our own darkness until eventually it gives way to God’s marvelous light."

 

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In the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, he and I began to brainstorm, each offering up suggestions as to what we would give up for Lent.  In recent years, we have intentionally abstained from the same thing during the Lenten season in an effort to encourage one another and provide accountability.  Ruth Haley Barton writes, "Fasting or some form of abstinence is a key discipline for the Lenten season because, if well-chosen, it can be a concrete way of renouncing sin patterns and attachments that have us in their grip. Consider fasting or abstaining from something that is connected with that place where God is revealing your need to die to some aspect of the false self." In this year of notice, small habits and patterns that I have previously dismissed or willingly neglected have taken on greater significance as I am prompted to thoughtfully consider their impact on my life.  For if I am honest with myself, each and every decision I make is impacted by the condition of my heart.  And, if I am being really honest with myself, my heart is prone to wonder {Lord, I feel it.}

 

This year we have landed on sweets, an indulgence that we had not considered in previous years, but now find ourselves willingly consuming on a daily basis.  If there is a candy jar, my husband's hands will be in it, and for some reason I find it difficult to resist grabbing a second spoon when he cracks the lid off an ice cream carton at the end of a long day.  Sweet pleasures have suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly, become needs.  Cookies, the solution to long afternoons, salted Carmel chocolates my "band aid" for the unexpected battle wounds of the day. 

 

And, so we begin our fast, having thrown almost empty ice cream cartons into the trash, and dumping what remained of heart shaped candy.

 

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139: 23-24