Lent it begin.

Two days ago, it was Fat Tuesday.  I ate some chocolate.  If I had more chocolate around, I would have eaten more. I didn't have any King Cake (which I'm always leery of - how does that baby not melt?  Or get eaten?).  Or paczki.  Or Mardi Gras beads.  Or liquor.  So the only way that I could differentiate this particular Tuesday from any other Tuesday was to eat a bit more chocolate than any normal Tuesday.  But I didn't really have enough chocolate to go all Fat with it.

I am not a Catholic.  Pope Francis gives me pause now and again about converting.  Never have I seen a Pope so Christ-like leading his people.  I am truly in love with him.  All that being said, I'm still not a Catholic.  I grew up Catholic-lite which is Episcopalian.  It's like Catholicism but with more exercise.  Stand, kneel, sit, repeat.  May peace be with you.  And also with you.  The first time I heard of Lent and was when I was 11 and lived in Belgium.  One of my friends went to the movies with me and wasn't allowed to eat any candy because it was Lent.  I'm pretty sure I encouraged her to eat some anyway.  Years later, I would adopt the practice of choosing something to give up for Lent. I liked the idea of giving something up for God. Honestly though, I'm not sure how successful I was with seeing it through.  As with most of my grand plans, my enthusiasm burns out far before it's executed.

The past few weeks more and more posts have been popping up on Facebook about the coming of Lent.  I had been mulling over what, if anything, I wanted to do about observing it this year.  The suggestions were plenty.  Foods.  Facebook.  Ungratefulness.  And they are all valid.  All good ideas.  All with  the focus of centering your heart towards God and Easter and it's unbelievable message of miracles and the truth of God's word and His unabiding love that runs so deep that He would sacrifice and resurrect His own flesh for each and every one of us.  Read it again.  Quiet your mind and read it one more time.  Let that just sit inside all of you whether you believe it or not.  Because even if you don't believe it, just imagine a love, any love, that burns that bright for any one, let alone you.  Because I promise you, it does.

At the heart of Lent, at the heart of the sacrifice that we consider for Lent, is discipline.  There is truly no way to sacrifice anything without having the ability to say "no".  Over and over and over again, "No".  And I, as a disciple of Christ, I crave discipline.  It does not escape me that the words are so similar.  I do not think that it is possible to be the best disciple I can be without discipline.  Habits and systems in place that make it the priority to spend time with God, to choose to say one word over another, to put others first.  I am not built of discipline.  I have never been good at receiving it.  Or particularly adept at giving it out.  I make excuses about how messy I am - I'm a creative!  I listen to the lie that I thrive on chaos.  It keeps me on my toes.  I claim its familiarity - It's all I know.  To walk on eggshells.  To be guarded about what lurks behind the corner  - because there is always lurking around the corner.

I think it's easy to talk about faith.  I do.  I don't face outright rudeness when I bring up that I'm a God-girl.  It's one of the privileges of living in this country - one I think we forget.  Most people can accept that even if they don't believe like I do, or at all, they have heard of Jesus, or Allah, or Buddha, or Ganesha (I don't know much about the thousands of other deities that go on there).  But as a Christian, I find that the roadblock is not in talking about Christ.  It's about talking about His counterpart.  Even among Christians, I notice a general acknowledgement of the character in the Bible meant to thwart God and Jesus at every turn.  But he is kept in the Bible.  He doesn't seem to make the transition into real life that God and Jesus do.  And I think that is a disservice to people of faith.  I think that is the impetus behind the question how can God allow suffering and pain.  Yes, as the Almighty, as the All-Powerful, it is within Him to change and right everything.  EVERY. THING.  But He didn't make that promise.  He promised to be right beside us because He knew it was going to be hard.  Because there are opposing forces at work.  Always.  Right here, in the living world.  And if you don't believe that, I've got a laundry list of the kind of people that I cannot just hand over to the concept of "human nature".  I'd really rather be an animal than to accept membership to a club that accepts that it takes all kinds.  Nope.  There is another kind.  And so, as I make reference to "the enemy" or "being under attack", even some Christians kind of look at me like I'm crazy.  And I get it.  For all my life, I have believed in God.  It was just a truth that was in my core.  Jesus came later in the game - about twelve years ago.  And a belief in satan being a real force in real time in real life - was far more recent than that.  Maybe part of it is that if you don't believe in satan being real, he just won't be.  But burying your head in the sand - well, that will still just suffocate you.  For me, there was even a transition of acknowledging him without empowering him.  Somehow I assigned him a benign post of existing but having no power.  After that, I believed him to be powerful enough to be single-minded in wanting to kill me.  But that's too easy.  Because if he kills me, based on my faith, I get to go the great big Mardi Gras in the sky.  End of story.  I win.  The truth is, satan doesn't want to kill me.  He wants to destroy me.  It seems like the same thing, but it isn't.  If he can disrupt my faith, he takes my hope and my joy.  As those sap drop by drop, it leaves room for him to slither in and fill the increasing emptiness with lies and festering fear.  Fear is the faith of the enemy and without hope and joy - fear wins.  A faltering army that is unsure of it's purpose or what side to serve - it is worse than having just one troop filled with conviction.  

Whoa.  What's with all this devil talk Jenny?  How does it all fit in?  Wrap it up, already!   Okay.  So here's how it all comes together.  I am under for real attack.  It comes in waves and it changes course so that I am never sure of how to fortify against it.  I reached out for prayer- which the enemy HATES!  I mean because prayer is all Godly by nature anyway but beyond that, oh how that hellion loves to keep you quiet and embarrassed to need and ashamed of failure.  He loves to have his claws in your isolated self and just tell you soothing lie after dangling temptation of escape.  When you shine light on his work - he's like a vampire in the light of the day star.  I stand by that comparison.  Anywho.  I called him out on Facebook and told people alot of the ugly I was dealing with.  And this one chick who I have known for so long and have always dug so much said - come over.  We are gonna pray it out.  So I did.  I went to her house and she gave me a cup of coffee and I filled her in on even more of what's what.  And she said to me: I don't know why the enemy would keep you in chaos except that out of chaos, you are a force to be reckoned with.   Those are some mighty words.  And you know what?  I claim them.  I claim that I am a warrior.  It sends truth tingles through my body (a post for another time... how long-winded do I need to be today!?).  Feeling like I'm being used by God, feeling like I'm fulfilling my purpose - It makes me feel whole.  Like unbroken in the first place.

So, as for Lent, the 6 members of my family have chosen something to give up.  I asked my children to tell me something that they would like to see me change.  I gave them permission to unfearfully speak truth.  It was nearly unanimous - being on my phone and computer all the time.  I choose this time to be a servant to my family.  My give-up is that I will not be on my phone (except for communication) or my computer while in the company of my family.  But what I haven't told them is that I'm not actually giving up something.  I'm starting something.  The opposition of chaos - of being out of control and disorganized and lazy and flipping out and being on edge and escaping my world by being on my phone or computer - is discipline.  And the opposition of the owner of chaos is the disciple.  This disciple is getting down with discipline.  Not just no to having escape at my fingertips but yes to showing my children faithfulness and being intentional and habit. Yes to mirroring what I say God wants for them by wanting it for myself.  Yes to saying that God wants more for us and giving him the space to give it to us.  Yes to being grateful for what I have instead of living in resentment of its upkeep. Yes to thought and prayer before action.  Yes to action over squandering. Yes to inconvenience and homework and out of my comfort zone.  Yes to prayer.  But also yes to chocolate because I did NOT give that up for Lent.   Peace y'all.