Lent

The season of Lent started on Wednesday this week and with it Stefan and I started actively participating. The link gives a better overview of the traditional Church's season, but basically it's a time of preparation. Many people use this as a time to fast, as in not eating, but many others will fast one particular thing (chocolate, sweets, alcohol, television, etc.). We were talking about fasting in our small group Bible study and it seems that most everybody will be fasting in some way or another.

Stefan and I have decided to do a partial fast in relation to food. We're doing only tea/water/protein drink stuff with the exception of a healthy lunch. You can read a little more about fasting here. Of course, just going without food isn't really the point of Lent, it's about focusing on God, reading the Bible, and spending time in prayer. And I think that's really the hardest part.

To help hold me accountable I wrote a list of things I wanted to do regarding prayer: confession, prayer for specific friends and family members, prayer about Stefan and I and a lot of big-picture issues we're trying to sort through, etc. In terms of reading the Bible, I'm continuing with a read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan Stefan and I both have, but have now also added the Daily Office sections from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. I created check-lists for each day and it's activities to help me see if I'd actually followed through with my intentions.

It seems like a lot, but actually it's been really great. I do a section in the morning and another in the evening. It's been interesting to see how the themes of the reading in the yearly reading plan I already had fit nicely with the readings of the Daily Office. To help me focus on the actual content of the reading, as opposed to just plowing through it, I've decided to write out by hand all the verses that really stand out to me. Normally I'd just underline them, and maybe write some out somewhere, but for Lent I wanted to contain them all in one place. Writing them all out by hand actually helps me to internalize them more. I suppose I'm also fasting some laziness and time by doing it this way.

This is only Day 3 - and there are 40 days to Lent! I really hope we can continue at the pace we've been going. I do pray for diligence and discipline each day to continue on. It honestly doesn't feel like too much of a burden right now, but perhaps that will change over time...? I know Stefan misses the food more than I do, lol, perhaps I'm just relieved to not be cleaning up the kitchen 3x/day! Sundays are not traditional fasting days, so we'll be eating regularly those days, but still continuing with the extra readings, etc.

We're pretty excited with how we will end our season of Lent: celebrating Easter on a retreat with our small group Bible study! This will be my first non-traditional Easter. My friend Karoliina says she always used to spend her Easters on church retreats with friends and viewed it as a real spiritual high point. I've always valued the time with family and friends and a traditional church service. So this year it will be similar, but different. Since everybody going on the retreat is also commiting to being "Lent-intentional" I think this makes the retreat pretty special - we'll all be celebrating lots of things on Easter Sunday - but mainly Christ's Resurrection!