Lenten Realities and Revelations

Every Lent I'm reminded of my own limitations, of my imperfections, of my inability to measure up and my utter need for the grace of God. I'm a weak woman, I am. I am not so disciplined as I'd like to be. I fall through on my commitments, I shout at my kids, I get angry at my husband, and I find a million things to do rather than cleaning the bathrooms.

But, I'm saved by grace through faith. And while even my faith is sometimes faulty, God's grace is always perfect. It is all I need. And so these forty days of coming face to face, once again, with my weaknesses and sin just serve to make the awesomeness of Christ's sacrifice for me that much more meaningful. What would I do had He not come and died on the cross? How would I ever make it if He had not shed His blood to cover my many sins?

I wouldn't. I couldn't

Praise the Lord for His incredible love that He demonstrated on that cross so many years ago. Without it I would be utterly lost and without a hope in the world.

Thus Began Lent

Today the older two kids spent some time thinking about what sin they wanted to focus on this Lent. They both chose disobedience, and little Bud-Jack said, "Mm-mm my momma." Which I believe meant that was what he wants to work on too :)

Of course J and I should be picking out a sin to confront over the next 40 days, and our marriage discipleship which began last night is leaving us no real choice but to deal with some anger and communication issues. Our meeting with our new mentors last night went very well, in spite of my reservations. They were both extremely encouraging and said some of the nicest things about J and I and our marriage -- they definitely gave us much more credit then I tend to give us. They have us reading through a book called Uprooting Anger. I'll jot down my thoughts on the book later. At any rate, I really enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane as we both rehashed our "life stories" and talked at length about the history of our marriage. It was interesting to see just how different we are, how differently we grew up, and how different we are from both sets of parents -- and how these differences affect our marriage and family. I'm excited about it all, really.

We get homework assignments, just like in our church small group and men's and women's discipleship. This week we are to begin the book, read Ephesians twice (this lines up with group discipleship), go over with our children how God helps us handle temptation, and do three nice things for eachother that we don't normally do. I think we are also supposed to be doing some journaling of various things like what nice things we end up doing for eachother.

Which reminds me. . . I have the kids keeping track of their Lenten journey on a chart. I was thinking I should start a journal to keep track of mine -- that would put me at four journals (five if you count the blog). So maybe I'll combine the Lent and marriage journals since they seem pretty interconnected anyway. I ramble.

Upcoming Lent and a Few Personal Goals

Lent begins tomorrow, and I've still not completely nailed down how I want it to play out for our family. . . and for me personally. I've sort of committed myself to attempting a slight meat and sugar fast. . . to feed the family more simply for the next 40 or so days. I'm also planning a sort of grid/calendar/chart for each of the three older kids on which they can keep track of days till Easter as well as give themselves stars for good deeds and also focus on a different character trait or Christian discipline each week. But that is about as deep as my plans have gone so far, and I am looking for divine inspiration at this point. Maybe that is the best way to do it, anyway. Especially since we plan to be out of town on a relaxing vacation during Holy Week. Maybe this Lent I will intentionally do a planning fast.

However, I do have some personal goals for March.

1. I'm always re-visiting this particular goal. . . To drink 64+oz. of water a day. When I do it, I feel so much more energized and happy and patient even. When I don't, I'm tired, grumpy and irritable.
2. To completely carve out a stress-free 1 1/2 - 2 hr. quiet time at least every weekday. This time is to be dedicated to reading my Bible, journaling (paper and pen), praying and then reading a book till I fall into a sleep-like stupor. NO COMPUTER! I already do this, to an extent, when the kids are doing their quiet times/naps; but I need to work on just relaxing during this time. . . nothing else.
3. I've been working through A Mother's Rule of Life. . . s - l - o - w - l - y. I'm pretty good with my first P -- Prayer. I'm struggling with my second P -- Person. I think I will probably need a good month to get in the habit of taking better care of myself. So I will be breaking this into mini-goals. Week 1: Begin getting into bed by 11:00pm every weekday night. Week 2: Every morning, after breakfast, get dressed, wash and moisturize face, brush hair and teeth, and put on deoderant. Week 3: Every evening, shower, comb hair, and moisturize. Brush and floss teeth every night before bed. Week 4: Exercise with Teeny (Teeny really likes exercising -- she did not get that from me.) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when J gets home. Also: Take every Saturday morning off (so long as family and J's schedule allows) to pamper self, go shopping *alone*, lay in bed and read or nap.

Again, I'm horrible at taking care of myself. I have a really hard time letting go of motherly responsibilities for *any* length of time. This will be a struggle for me, but a struggle I believe the whole family will benefit from.

Now to go begin our Mardi-Gras celebrations. . . and make up some Lent charts.