When Lent Tests You

You could say I failed Lent this year.
In the sense that I did not achieve what I set out to do in my initial vision.

But by that standard I "fail" in just about everything I attempt.

Lent is a popular practice - even among non-Catholics and non-Christians. There is something about systematically setting aside a time for simplicity, challenge, and trying to be more honestly who we are meant to be, that speaks to a deep longing many of us find within ourselves.

What I find most thrilling about Lent is how much better it gets because of the intentional surrender to God's Will.

I do a give up, a take on, and a pray on.

This year I decided to give up meat as a family, take on fostering intentional community, and praying on healing for victims of abuse.

I thought this would be a Lent of trying new recipes and re-visiting old favorites from when we ate tons of veggies in California. Calling up old friends, and making intentional time to foster new friendships. Spending some time in adoration and dedicating rosaries for abuse victim/survivors.

Then we had a house fire.

Suddenly meatless Lent became about being grateful for any meal that was provided for us.
Intentional community became learning to accept help when it was offered, and being ok with saying yes to letting people into our hard times.
I haven't had those times of extra silent prayer and adoration time. But I talked to The Atlantic about how parents are dealing with the crisis (or, in some cases, not dealing with the crisis), listened to the stories of survivors, and supported those creating future plans for parish and diocese events for furthering healing and understanding.

Nothing about this Lent is something I could have planned. It's not at all what I had planned.

And it's so much better.

Getting back into our house the weekend of Passiontide was both a relief and a burden. We're just so, overwhelmingly, grateful to be home, to still have a home, and to start to get things back to normal. But it's also so painfully obvious how much further we have to go.

The house hadn't been lived in for five weeks. It had been through temperature fluctuations ranging from -18 to 55 degrees. The dust and dirt of winter plus that time of non-habitation plus fire and smoke meant every, single, thing needs attention.

It would be so easy not to deal with it. To pretend that everything is fine and not even start. And suddenly I realized how often we do that with those non-physical aspects of Lent.

How often are there issues in our own lives that are within our grasp to address, but we don't.
Maybe we think it will be too much effort.
Too much demand.
Too much change.
Too overwhelming.

Many of those things we need to address are easy to hide, easy to ignore. Yeah, it's not great to ignore your mental health, overindulge, or entertain destructive thought processes. But it's easy to hide and pretend everything is fine under the hood. We all know that's a bad long term plan, but do we do it? For sure. I do it too.

But it's so much better to deal with it. To get in the dirt and grime, and start to chip away at the hold it has on you.

As we go into Holy Week this year, think about what in your Lent needs a little elbow grease? Where could you push just a little further in these last days of Passiontide? Where could you let grace shine in a little more?