Lent

The season of Lent begins this Wednesday. I have been observing Lent for the past 6 years or so. It is a season that helps me intentionally prepare for the joy of Easter. When I give up something that I have come to rely on as a crutch or a pacifier... I am more aware of me need for Jesus. Giving up coffee, or gossip, or TV, or soda, or sugar or alcohol or any number of things that we as humans go to in our stress, sadness, frustration... helps us focus on what the real issues are.

40 days of doing or not doing anything changes me. I am, along with my boyfriend, giving up TV/Movies for this Lent season. Something we can do together as well as we each have something personal we will do. I find myself wondering how this will improve our relationship with each other and our relationships with the Lord. It has GREAT potential for both.

But it isn't just giving up something for  me this year. I have been putting together a journey of reflections and intentional processes for our reFresh audience as well.

If you are looking for something to help you intentionally enter into Easter this year, you can sign up here Linger in Lent 

I am looking forward to this journey with others this Lenten season. Looking forward to how God invites each of us to a closer relationship with Him during this time.

Love is...

1 Corinthians 13:1-6 (RSVCE)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. 

Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I find that I do not love well very often. I am prone to put myself first, to lose hope, to being irritable, to wanting my own way, to not being patient... the list goes on. And  I have to wonder... if I loved like I am called to love...how would things be different? This chapter keeps running through my head. Thank you Mom and AWANA for pounding the memorization of Scripture into my head. :) 

It is not just in my dating relationship that I think of this, I think of family members and friends and co-workers and everyone I encounter along a day. If people could see this kind of love emanating from me, would that draw them to a deeper relationship with God himself?

In the Message, the phrasing is so poignant.... as I let it wash over me and sink into my soul... Love never gives up. Love always believes the best...

And the verses 4-6 (The Message)

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.