Lent: Making Room for God
The day has finally arrived. The day I anticipated and dreaded. Ash Wednesday.
This year I’m doing something different.
Instead of giving up a particular thing for lent like bread and sugar, like I usually do, I’m giving up my unhealthy habits. The first one being my eating habits. Dare I say it, I’m going on a hopefully life changing diet. I’ve been heading toward this for a long time and though my exercise habits are great, my weight has not dropped significantly in about three years. So it’s time I take a closer look at what I eat and how often I eat and how often I run to food instead of God.
I’ve been on Sparkpeople.com for a while and they have a great site to help me track my food, but tracking gets tedious. So I’m making my own breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack lists on index cards. I’ll start with five different healthy and low calorie options for each category and put them on cards, so I can mix and match days. I’m not giving up sweets altogether, but I will allow myself cereal bars, etc. that fit into my plan. Will I be successful at weight-loss? I hope so, but more importantly this process will be painful, and I need that during this season so I can get the focus of making myself comfortable and do the hard things I know that need to be done. Am I a martyr? No, but I know this will help me get back on track to living a healthy lifestyle.
The second part of my lent plan is to really make room for God. My church has given us a scripture reading for 3x a day, little God breaks. I’m going to try my best to do this, but if I can’t read, then I’m going to at least pause, 3x a day. When I wake, after lunch and before I go to bed. Plus, the children’s church gave out these great little devotions we’ll do at dinner. Plus, every other Wed. we’ll be going to the lent services. I’ll be fasting dinner and eating soup with the congregation afterwards.
It’s no secret that my daily quiet time is always a struggle. I don’t know what it is about getting quiet and being still, but I’ve never been good at it. One key to being successful in this in NOT turning on the computer. So, my plan is God first, computer second. Plus, I’m going to limit my Twitter and Facebooking which always distracts me. I also want to make it a point to get off the computer by 9:30 am and start homeschool at a decent time. I’m getting better, but not there yet. Then, I’ll limit my email checking to lunch and after the kids are in bed. The computer often robs me of family time and I want that to change that this lent.
Phew! That’s a lot of stuff I want to do, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And even if I’m not succesful at it all, I’ll at least accomplish some. I’m hoping, instead of giving up candy or carbs, I’ll be recommitting to the things I should be doing all year long. I hope this year I really will make room for God!
