Lenten Blog: Post Three

during this season of lent, we have invited some of the many voices at journey to contribute to our blog... to share their thoughts and experiences about lent. enjoy!

So, I am completely regretting saying that I would come up with something for the Lent Blog. I realize now that it is much harder to come up with “something” worth saying after all. So I’m taking my normal rambling approach and hopefully a little meaning will emerge, but no promises.

The word Lent brings about a lot of words, phrases and images swirling around in my mind, but when I sit down to try and pinpoint what I think of Lent or any moving experiences related to Lent, it’s as if I can’t grab a hold of anything solid. To me that is a little like faith anyway so I’m going with it. I confess, I didn’t give up anything this year. I stopped drinking caffeinated beverages around mid January when I realized one Monday I hadn’t had one all day, and the miracle of it all was…. I survived!! So I went ahead and stopped drinking them then which was good but as the Lent season approached I found myself without an obvious sacrifice and in turn didn’t spend much time thinking of anything else to give up or take on.

That’s when I was reminded of last year when I struggled to give up caffeine and how hard it was for me. Russell and I both decided to give up caffeine, and I had a really, awful time of it. Headaches, grouchiness, and grieving accompanied me on my journey and all the while Russell was feeling none of these symptoms. I couldn’t believe that he was handling this so well. Where was his misery and what about the legendary headaches? Was there no justice? Obviously, I needed to go through some self-evaluation and try not to despise his obvious lack of addiction withdraw.

Time went on and we were in Michigan visiting my little sister, Margaret, for Spring Break, and we decided to take a road trip to Canada to track down some Tim Horton Timbits (for those of you who don’t know, Timbits are amazing, little, scrumptious donut holes that come in a variety of flavors). But it wouldn’t be a road trip without the obligatory stop at the local convenient store to stock up on some good ole’ fashioned junk food. Lusting after the Cherry Coke and regular Dr. Pepper, Russell tried to console me and offered to grab a Mountain Dew like he was getting. A WHAT?!! Yes, you read correctly, Mountain Dew!!!… the soda with one of the highest caffeine contents. Suddenly the world and the previous weeks of suffering became clear as I explained to my innocent husband that not all clearish sodas are caffeine free.

Thinking about this incident this year brought thoughts of intention to my mind (okay and drug trials where they give one group the placebo and the other group the real deal). Again, like I mentioned earlier, I have no grasp on all of this but the word intention stuck out to me and the intention of giving up or taking something on during Lent means to me reaching for a connection with God. Connecting is what I am trying to do more intentionally this Lent season and of course hope to continue. But I also know that I’m not good at it and so in the end this seems like a reasonable and necessary Lent goal for myself. I also know without a doubt that connecting with God is a day to day, moment by moment choice that is only a conversation, thought, whisper away.

- Katy Blake