40 Days

We are already about 40 days away from Easter.  Can you believe it?

Easter, Spring, Spring Break, countdown until school is out!!

January is a complete blur.  I can't even remember if anything interesting happened between New Year's Eve (an amazing sparkle party success) and our mid-winter break trip to Whistler.

Nope.  I just checked my phone and I took zero photos between these two events, so it must be true, nothing happened.

Anyway 40 days until Easter.  'Tis the season for Lent.  I didn't grow up practicing Lent.  I remember friends asking what I was giving up for Lent and I simply responded "uh I'm not catholic".

It wasn't until I was older and really thought about what Lent is that I decided to take part.  To me, it is a little like advent lessons leading up to Christmas.  Lent is a 40ish day reminder to me that Good Friday is coming and Easter Sunday follows.  It is a way for me to put more thought into Jesus' life, death, and resurrection over the course of a few weeks instead of taking it all in on that Sunday morning.

Today I gave my "Lent According to Clarissa" lesson to Eli.  

It went like this: Jesus went into the desert for 40 days before he went super public with his ministry. The thought behind this time in the desert was that he may have needed or desired some time away from it all to really just focus on what God had planned for him.  He prayed and fasted then he came out of the desert, launched his ministry, and eventually went to the cross.

In the same spirit of Jesus going in to the desert and fasting people participate in Lent in which they give up something for a span of time and somehow use this sacrifice as a reminder of what Jesus did for us.

A recent Bible study that I read was talking about how we need to work less on getting rid of idols in our life and work more on focussing our attention and admiration toward God.  The more we focus on God and the things He desires for us, it will naturally follow that there just isn't enough time or interest to focus on the other things.

So instead of giving up something for Lent this year, I decided to do something instead.  I am attempting to walk/run every day for 40 days.  Rain or shine (and you know there is a lot of rain where I live) and no matter how busy the day (its baseball season, every day will be busy!).  

Now I'm not talking about walking/running for the shear health of it, although it would be great if I shed a few layers of belly fat along the way, the focus of these times for me is not speed work or endurance running, it is about praying over my kids, my family, you!  Sure I pray for my kids every day, but for 30 solid mins?  Nope.  I get way to distracted to accomplish that on a regular basis.  

My prayers usually go like this "God please be with Gabe today.  Help him to have a good lunch with his friends.  Oh ya, I need more lunch meat, and bananas.  Bananas are so great.  I love bananas dipped in chocolate too.  We haven't had fondue in a while....."

So this 30 minutes a day is about getting me away from all the things that are drawing me in, things to do, people to chat with, lists to check off and distractions and just pray over people in my life.

I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of this time.  Maybe I become better at praying over people, maybe I become a better listener to what God wants me to do, maybe mountains will be moved, lives changed, health regained, joy restored.  I don't know but I'm willing to make time this next few weeks to find out!