On the other hand, today feels awfully penitential. I'm tired, hungry, and bothered with all sorts of temptations to be anxious, bitter, discouraged, and worried. Can I call it "spiritual warfare"? Because that's what it feels like. The past 24 hours have been a battle. God has blessed me, but "the world, the flesh, and the devil" are trying to take away my joy. There's a reason "Counsel the doubtful" is a spiritual work of mercy; that nasty stuff doesn't go away easily.
Learning to really trust God through this uncertainty is one of my goals this Lent. I'm sure He and I will have some very forthright talks on my silent Ignatian retreat in two weekends. (I'm both excited and terrified. Anybody have advice about preparing for one of these things?) I'm also going to work on some spiritual reading I've been meaning to do.
Other than that, here's the formal "What am I doing for Lent" list
- No sweets or secular TV (a family tradition.) This means it's time to review a bunch more Jesus movies.
- Attending daily Mass once a week
- Praying the Rosary every day during my commute
- Sending out at least one job application a week - if I want God to help my future, I better do something about it.
What are you giving up this year? How do you build trust in God?
Aww, I'm sorry to hear you're down today. I feel the same way...cranky, tired and hungry. We have half a king cake left over from the weekend and I want to polish it off in the worst way. Plus Claire was fussy today and screamed her way through the grocery store while I plodded through with my ashes. I am sure everyone was thinking "Look at the Catholic mom who can't even control that one toddler." Little did they even know she is my 4th and the others were just at school.
ReplyDeleteI am gave up Facebook for Lent and I am trying to stay off the Internet in general. It's such a time suck for me and prevents me from doing what I should be doing but it is so easy to just get pulled in. I have done this before and always find it to be fruitful. Yet here I am commenting on your blog. Well, what can I say, the updates show up in my email and I do check email!
I will try to pray a decade of the rosary each day with the family and we have some activities we do with the children. An empty glass jar and a clay dish of pebbles. When they do a good deed for someone or offer up a suffering, instead of crowing about it, they just quietly place a pebble from the dish into the jar. And after they are in bed on Holy Saturday, I empty the pebbles and replace them with jellybeans, to show how Jesus takes our sufferings and turns them to joy. Or sugar and artificial color. Same thing, right?
Great, I wrote "I am gave up Facebook." Now I sound like a lame Internet meme.
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