I can hardly believe that Lent is beginning in just two days. Practically, I've been planning Lenten activities and project for my youth group kids since last summer and more seriously during Advent. Personally, I am not at all ready.
I have not picked a discipline for the Lent. I purchased the ingredients for our meatless meals this week. I will be able to abstain from meat on Wednesday and Friday.
Lent is hard.
It should be.
It is a penitential season.
But, I feel like I've been living Lent for the last year. I need to make this season different from the past year.
Haven't I given enough? Haven't I prayed enough? Haven't I suffered enough?
This past year has been filled with prayer, service, and loss.
Lent is coming. I'm being asked to do more..do something different to grow in my relationship with God. I wonder if it is okay to have a "healing" Lent that prepares my heart and my relationship with God to move past the difficulty of this last year.
In the little bit of reading I've done, it seems that Lent can also be a season of healing and hope! Wow! How perfect! God's perfect and unconditional love is there. This Lenten season I need to work toward accepting and finding God's love in the day to day struggles.
These seven weeks I will read, reflect, study, and pray about:
Week 1: God's love is un-conditional.(February 10 -13)
Week 2: It is not
conditioned on my being better, or my overcoming
anything, or even my being good at all. (February 14 - 20)
Week 3: God just
loves me. (February 21 -27)
Week 4: I am always precious in the eyes of the
One who made me and desires to embrace me with
the gift of complete freedom, in everlasting life. (February 28 - March 5)
Week 5: God knows everything, including what
I'm struggling with or suffering under.(March 6 - 12)
Week 6: The God of
all compassion, understands me and loves me. (March 13 - 19)
Week 7: It
may be that the place where I need the greatest
sorrow and desire for forgiveness and healing is
my lack of trust in God's complete and
unconditional love for me. (March 20 - March 26)
