Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday ~ the beginning of Lent. 40 days and 40 nights. Not usually the most popular season, as it is full of fasting, abstaining, etc. Our priest, Fr. Paul, gave an interesting insight last year as to what it means to 'give up something for lent'. Most people will give up something, like, say, chocolate, and then on Easter Sunday, have chocolate again to their heart's content and chalk it up as a successful Lenten season. But was it really? Fr. Paul would say no. Rather, he would say that the thing that you give up needs to be something that will make you a better person, that will help you be more Christ-like. And 40 days and 40 nights is enough time to change bad habits into good ones.

We lead a personal finance course, Financial Peace University (by Dave Ramsey), at our church. We meet once a week for 13 weeks, and cover basics such as getting out of debt and budgeting, and other topics such as mortgages, retirement and college planning, etc. Now, Dave has written books with all the same information in them as is in the class. One would argue that just reading the books should be sufficient ~ no extra knowledge is gained by attending class. But there is one major thing that this helps people with ~ changing habits. When people are exposed to this information week after week, they begin to really hear and understand what Financial Peace is all about, and begin to change habits. They begin to budget, they begin to understand why it is so necessary to financial health to be rid of debt, and they begin to make changes in their habits to make this new way of financial living a reality. The class is 13 weeks long because habits don't change overnight, and that much time is needed to form new habits.

I view Lent in much the same way. We are given a time to reflect on and abstain - or *fast* - from certain bad habits. Is a successful Lenten season one where you ate fish every Friday and abstained from desserts? Not really, unless your new habits carry on after Lent is over. See, if your goal is better eating habits, and you continue to eat fish once a week and abstain from sweets, your overall health has improved, and thus you are a better person because you are taking better care of the body that God gave you. Lent is a time to make changes in your behavior to make you a better person for Christ, and to carry on those changes even after Lent is over.

Yesterday, while doing schoolwork, my girls and I had a discussion about the meaning of Lent. Hannah said that some kids in her Religious Ed class said that on Fridays during Lent they have to take their lunch because the school does not serve fish. I told her that Lent is not really about just eating fish on Friday. She gave me a puzzled look. To her, that is what Lent was. And, I have to say, it was for me, too, for a long time ~ until last year. I do not like to eat fish. I cannot stand the fishy taste and almost never make it unless it is during Lent. For years, our standard Friday dinner was fried fish and homemade macaroni and cheese. But, I explained, Lent is about changing your behavior to be more Christ-like. After a bit more explaining, light bulbs began to go off. Oh.... Okay... So Hannah is going to do all her school assignments completely (she has a bad habit of not completing every section or skipping a subject entirely) and she will not lie (we'll see on that one!). Hayleigh (who is always up for a good debate) is going to stop arguing with me. Hope is undecided at this point, although a cease fire (so to speak) with her sisters was in the lead. And the interesting thing... they all came up with these ideas themselves. They all see - no matter how young - how they can be more Christ-like.

I have not really decided what my focus will be this Lenten season, although I think that I will probably focus on running a better household ~ there's always room for improvement!

What will you do with your 40 days and 40 nights?