This Lent has been brought to me by Ms. Frizzle and the letter "Y." My first official Lent I was so afraid of getting it wrong that I only dared to give up hot chocolate--painful, but definitely doable. My confidence has grown and last year I gave up all kinds of things. This year I'm on a diet, Lent is my everyday, so I took a middle course and decided to be open to the idea of Sunday as a break.
I find shifting like that difficult, so I made mistakes. I swallowed a bite of pizza just in time to remember it was Friday. I scarfed a treat from my Valentine before realizing it was chocolate. I caught every episode of Project Runway, but there were several nights I failed to read even a chapter of The Book of My Life.
I was also ready to try something more extremely Catholic. I was going on retreat, but there weren't enough people so it was cancelled. Like Nancy Kerrigan, I sat crying, "Why?" maybe not exactly that dramatically, more of a wounded sulking, but there was a lot of emotion in it.
The interesting thing was in the middle of the mistakes and the crappy attitude, Lent went right on. My kids fell in love with McFish bites. I found lots of positive things to do with all that negative energy. I have almost finished St. Teresa's book.
This was my year to make Lent mine, even if I made a mess. Authenticity doesn't come from keeping a set of rules perfectly. It comes from putting your heart into it and trusting the rest to God.
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