Special Lent Post

Just a warning and heads up, this post is going to be a little different. No updates on life or my bible reading journey or fun ideas. This post is about lent and what my stand on it is. If you don't want to hear a "sappy" story or anything this post might not be for you. But if you are adventurous and don't mind my ramblings then please enjoy!!!

For years and years I did not observe lent. I did not think it did anybody any good to say you are going to give something up for 40 some days only to give up a couple weeks into it. I saw lent kind of like new years resolutions, a good idea but not very good follow through. That was until last year when I had a very eye opening experience. My pastor was talking to us in youth group about lent and what we were giving up, and I openly expressed my opinion about the whole situation. I expected some rebuttal but I did not expect the words that came out of his mouth. He told us that lent was not about giving something up to make you healthy, or to make you feel better physically, it was about drawing close to God. He said that we need to look in our lives and hearts and see if we are putting anything before God, and once we figure what that thing is we need to reflect on it and try our best to put God first in everything that we do. WHOA BABY. That was all I needed to hear to make myself realize that I had been looking at lent in a totally wrong light. So last year was the first year I observed lent in my Christian life. It was a pretty humbling experience to tell you the truth. Last year I decided that the only liquid I would ingest would be water. I made that decision because I was not being thankful for all the good stuff in my life. So many people around the world do not even have clean water to drink and I am sitting at home drinking lemonade and milkshakes. I made it all 40 days last year and I was very proud of myself. I learned to thank God more often for all the things that I have in my life and I also learned to pay more attention to those who are not as fortunate as I am. It was just such a neat experience.

Well this year I am taking a little bit of a different route. I have realized in the past couple of months that I have been putting my focus on a certain something more than I have God. That certain something is my boyfriend. Going to the same college is great. We get to see each other everyday, we get to go out on dates, and I get to talk to him face to face. However, because we are so close I have been focusing a lot of my attention on him and school and not as much on God. Not to day that God is not a HUGE part of my life, but I think that I could be talking to him more throughout the day and leaning more on him. I contemplated what I should do. I could not give up my boyfriend for lent. That would be a little awkward and probably not the best idea in the world. But I realized that I could give up an aspect of him. I thought back to the time when holding his hand was just so special, now it is just something we do. Hugs and kisses and have replaced the hand holding as the way we show each other love. I noticed that that is what was holding me back from God. That is when I made the choice to give up kissing my boyfriend for lent. Some you may be thinking WHAT Sara kisses a boy?!?!?! Yes world I do, sorry if I disappointed anybody :) But anyways I talked to Chase about it and he is on board with the idea, and my roommate has decided to do the same thing, which I think is great because now I have a girl to talk about my journey with. I truly believe that this lent is going to be awesome and that I am going to really put my focus more on Godly love and less on earthly love. Yes it is going to be hard but I know I am strong and through God I am even stronger. My hope is that at the end of lent, my relationship with Chase will be stronger and that we will have realized other ways to show love to each other that is not physical, but more so that my relationship and foundation with God will be stronger and that my walk with him will be built upon rock and not on sand. He is the most important relationship and I love him so incredibly much.

So that is what my lent is going to be this year. hope the story was not too sappy, and i hope that you will consider something to give up for lent to draw closer to God. It does not have to be anything huge, just something that needs to be put aside for a while so God can come back into your life. I hope that you will be praying for me while I am on this journey, and I will be praying for you as well. I sure hope that this lent season is a great one and I hope that your journey is blessed!!!!