Happy Wednesday and more specifically, happy Lent! Today marks the beginning of the Lenten season, which prepares for Easter Sunday. It is typical during Lent to give up an activity or item to represent sacrifice, and today I wanted to talk about what I will be doing to celebrate Lent.
It has been many years since I celebrated Lent in this sense and as a child, I would often give up something silly like "soda," even though I rarely drank Coca Cola. We were always asked to do this during Lent during religious education classes, and it felt difficult to come up with something meaningful so an easy or silly answer always seemed like the best idea.
As an adult, and after my year-long project in 2018 going so well, I wanted to be more thoughtful about how I approached Lent this year. One thing that I plan to do for certain is to read the She Reads Truth Easter plan, which starts on April 8th and goes through Easter. I enjoyed past readings I did, such as the plan for Advent during Christmas, and thought that reading the Lenten plan would be a good starting point for something to work on during the season, as well as being a goal that I think I can actually accomplish.
At this point in my life, there are not many things that I feel I indulge on, including clothes, sweets, sodas, or spending. If I wanted to improve in one of these areas, I would definitely try to align my Lenten promise (what I'm 'giving up') with one of those things. However, at this point I don't see myself being realistically able to work towards something in one of those categories, so I feel like it might be more appropriate to set a goal for myself or a habit that I want to create and work on that over the next 6 weeks instead.
I haven't come up with a definitive plan yet of what my next 6 weeks will entail, but some ideas I have include:
- Establishing a daily wellness habit like 5 minutes of meditation
- Being more conscious of single-use plastic in my life and trying to mostly give it up
- Doing a phone detox for a period of time
- Making firm plans to see important people in my life that I don't see often
- Decluttering my closet/belongings and donating items I no longer want
While these suggestions may not seem 'sacrificial,' I think that they still maintain the spirit of the Lenten season by allowing for personal growth, wellness, and reflection. And though I don't have it all planned out in advance, I am giving myself the flexibility to make changes along the way and adapt to what I need throughout the next month and a half. Especially since this is the first time I'm truly participating in Lent in a long time, I know that I can build and improve over the years to come as well.
If you celebrate, what are you doing this year for Lent? What do you think about taking a more relaxed approach to the season?
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