Humbleness

I was doing so well. I mean... I gave up chocolate. I have exercised regularly since Ash Wednesday. My new experiment in blogging began on Mondays during Lent. Here I was sailing through Lent when I de-constructed yesterday.

As you may have noticed, my Monday blog is posted on Tuesday. It wasn't that I forgot to blog; rather, I couldn't for the life of me remember the process needed to add a new one in the time alloted before the dash to the next thing. If I am going to confess... I might as well come clean. Last night driving home from a track meet in Waverly I steered my car into the drive through lane at McDonald's. Ready to place my order of sweet tea, I made a quick impulse buy instead of an iced mocha latte. Mocha translates to chocolate, which I didn't even think about until after half was consumed.

Study leave may have involved a great deal of theological reading on the varied Methodist doctrines, but it left little room for the quiet reflections of Lent. I waded through the big three of salvation, justification and sanctification, but neglected the Lenten practices:

• Confession, whereby we release those stresses and things that keep us from God,
• Reception of a "word for our lives from the Word of Life," and
• Return to the world as the body of Christ.

I've enjoyed The Awkward Season by Pam Hawkins for reminded me of the important practices of Lent. I am in awe of the mystery of God's grace as I know I stand in great need.

I leave you with another prayer of Hawkins:

Sometimes, O God, my thirst for you

is pushed aside, ignored,

or simply quenched by something 0ther--

something more reasonable,

something more popular-- than you.

But you never go away,

never stop,

never leave the depths of me.

Like an underground spring,

you are fresh and free,

breaking through.

Help me prepare a place for you in the caverns of my soul.

Amen.

On the journey,Alecia