Starting Today...

Hi, Blog. Nice to see you again... 

Geez. I've been away from this blog writing thing for a couple of months (yet again), and all my talk about being intentional and renewing my relationship with Jesus through this seems trivial now. But it doesn't have to be! Change is possible, so here we go. 

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and a 40 day journey to Jesus' death and resurrection on Easter Sunday. So… what the heck is LENT?

We give things up, right? We give up eating junk food, or spending time on Facebook, and are supposed to use that time to focus on the Lord and read the Bible and be transformed. That is the most basic and most widely understood explanation of Lent that I know of in regard to our American culture. What does that mean, though? Where did it come from? And, to be frank, why should I care?

Seriously, how is giving up ice cream going to bring me closer to God?

Honestly, I don’t know. I gave up ice cream for Lent once. It was fine. Not my favorite thing, but not super difficult. I don’t recall how often I read my bible while craving ice cream, but probably never. There was a sense of “fake it ‘til you make it” surrounding my Lenten journey that year, and I cannot tell you one thing that I remember about a spiritually impactful moment through those 40 days. This was probably because I didn’t understand what Lent really was, or how to “do it” well. But I knew it was important to my church family, and so it should probably be important to me. It is important, but I’ll get into the “why” later. Anyway…

I didn’t want to give up anything for Lent this year, because I’ve been giving up on so much recently. I wanted something new. Something I had to stick to, though I knew it would stretch me. Something that would add to my life, not make me more apathetic.

And that is when I was reminded of this little piece of the internet that I hadn’t updated in while.

I feel God calling me to speak out about what He is doing in my life, specifically because I feel like He is doing NOTHING. This is so not true, but I think He knows I need to affirm His work in my life in ways that I can remind myself of later. So the idea to document this season of Lent on this blog came to me, and I am running with it.

I’ve realized that I have become apathetic in many areas of my life, and I give up easily. Just because I am still not where I want to be…

A few examples:

1. Still in community college. Don’t know where I’m going to finish up my degree. = slacking on my schoolwork

2. My friends are getting married, graduating, moving on. I’m still in Fort Collins, working and going to school = allowing these relationships to slip because I’m not where they are

3. I don’t understand God’s plans for my life = I’ve given up spending time with Him

Sorry, that was all super depressing. But I believe that honesty and authenticity are so important in a season like Lent. So there you go.

Each Sunday, I’ll be posting a recap of my daily moments with Jesus and what He is teaching me and doing with me. Some of this will include studying the history of Lent and what it really means, as well as what it means to me. Some of this will include praises, joys, doubts, dryness and a whole lot of honesty.

I’m pretty terrible as keeping myself accountable with these kinds of things, but I am determined to be faithful over the next 40 days. So tune in on Sunday for the recap of this first half-week of Lent. 

I’ll be there!