Wednesday, March 9, 2011

My Lenten Sacrifice

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent, or the 40 days leading up to Easter. As a Catholic, I join many Christians across the world in this time of fasting, repentance, and prayer.

During Lent, my family and I will abstain from meat on Fridays and also try to give something else up. My parents are giving up meat completely. My sister is giving up sweets and the reality show "Real Housewives." I had a hard time coming up with what I am going to do for Lent, but this is what I have come up with so far.

Giving up Fast Food
As disgusting as it is, I am pretty much a sucker for fast food. The lazy girl inside of me finds it so easy to pull into that drive through and order food instead of heading home to make lunch or to prepare a snack ahead of time and bring it with me on errands. This is especially true when running around town with the girls. Miss H can spot a McDonald's or a Chick-Fil-A from a mile away, so this will be good for her too. I know I am not going to be able to go the whole season without buying her the occasional Happy Meal, but I hope to cut down on the frequency significantly. I am also going to try to keep track of the number of occasions that I want to stop by a Drive-through and put aside $2 for each time to donate to our church at the end of Lent.

Reading
I have several religious or spiritual books on my shelf that I have never opened or finished. My goal is going to be to only read these during Lent. If I find that I need a break, I may pick up a Christian fiction novel. I am going to devote 30 minutes in the evenings to read before going to bed and hope to get through at least three books.

Prayer
I have gotten woefully behind on my New Year's Resolution to spend more time reading scripture this year. As part of my Lenten preparations, I am going to try to read from my Catholic Women's Devotional Bible every morning. In fact, to make it easier for me to remember, I am bringing my Bible out of my bedroom and into the kitchen so that I can read it while drinking my coffee in the morning.

These are my goals for Lent this year. So, what do you do? Do you give anything up?

5 comments:

EMM said...

I like the idea of putting $2 aside each time you are tempted to stop for fast food. Great idea! As you mentioned, sugar and Housewives are gone from my world! My main focus is on desserts- cookies, candy, ice cream, etc. I used to never have this stuff in the house, but have gotten bad about indulging over the last few months. Also, I am going to call it "trashy reality tv" instead of just Housewives. Anything that encourages me to judge others-Housewives, Sister Wives, etc. I think I'm going to reincorporate a daily Rosary into the mix as well. Happy Lent!

Liz said...

SUCH a great idea to not only cut out fast food, but to put the money you would have spent to charity!

Kathryn said...

I am giving up FB for Lent. I firmly believe it is a distraction and an excuse for neglecting real contact with friends and family. I was honestly looking for an excuse to exempt myself from it anyway. In addition to giving up FB, I am taking on more prayer time and am reading The Praying Church.

KLZ said...

What a great way to save up for a donation! Although I really want fast food now.

Liz Mays said...

I'm pretty impressed with the fact that you're not just doing one thing, but several. I love your faithfulness.