LENT!

Kayla at Alluring World is hosting a lovely Lent Link Up, and if you’re interested you should head over there to check it out!

Every year, for a long time I’d give up swearing for lent. And every year, fora a long time, I’d fail miserably.

Last year I gave up Diet Pepsi. Well, technically I gave up drinking anything but water, coffee, and milk. In terms of sticking’ to it, I’d say that my Lenten sacrifice was a “success” – I slipped up once as far as I can remember. All I got out of that lent was good hydration habits and (hopefully) stronger bones.

The year before that I resolved to make time for prayer every day. But rather than allowing myself to be deluded into believing that a few more “Lord Make Haste to Help Me”s were going to make any difference, that year I dragged my lazy butt out of bed 40 minutes earlier so that I could make time for 30 minutes in the chapel – and you know what? That was my most successful Lent by far. Believe me, I did NOT make it every day. In fact, I considered it a successful week if I made it there three times, but I know that at the end of that Lent, I was closer to God, and I had a better idea of how to live according to His Will (and I don’t think it’s any accident that I met my husband scant weeks after Easter, either).

That Lent taught me that God’s idea of Success is different than mine – very different. After all, if He had meant for us to be perfect, He wouldn’t have given us Reconciliation. I’ve come to realize that my model for Lent (and for life) ought to be Christ in the Stations of the Cross. The most perfect human being (who was also fully divine!) who ever lived fell three times on His way to die for me, and every time He got back up. As every coach in every sport ever has always said, “It’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get back up.”

So, this year I’m pushing myself. A lot. This year I have a whole list of Lenten sacrifices and exercises – things I’m giving up and things I’m taking up – and all of it adds up to one thing: this Lent, all my small resolutions and sacrifices add up to one goal: to belong entirely to God.  I want to empty of myself – my needs, my wants, my selfish desires – and be more wholly a tabernacle for Christ.

So, I guess you could say that what I’m trying to give up is me.

Now, I know that sounds ridiculously pompous, self-absorbed, and self-righteous, but believe me, it comes from a very realistic place: It is entirely possible that I am the most selfish, vulgar, lazy, short-sighted, intolerant, and judgmental little wench on God’s green earth. But with all my nonsense, sins, failures, and grudges – God loves me exactly as I am, and He can use me to build a better world on earth - exactly as I am. So why wouldn’t I want to purge myself of my – er – self – and give control over to Him?

So, basically, my theme for lent can be summed up with this Vincentian Mission Prayer which I have kept taped to my bathroom mirror for the last three years, and which I pray every morning (and then promptly forget as soon as I’m in traffic):

Divine Savior,
transform me into yourself.
May my hands be your hands.
May my tongue be your tongue.
Grant that every faculty of my body may serve only to glorify you.
Above all, transform my soul and all its powers
that my memory, my will, and my affections
may be the memory, the will, and the affections of you.

I pray you to destroy in me all that is not of you.
Grant that I may live but in you and by you and for you,
that I may truly say with Saint Paul, “I live, now not I,
but Christ lives in me.”
Amen.

And now I want to hear from you. What are you giving up for Lent? What was your most successful Lent? What words of encouragement, advice, or warnings can you offer as I undertake this endeavor?