Adding Something for Lent

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent in the church calendar.  The season of Lent is the time of preparation for Easter; traditionally, something is given up for Lent to symbolize what Jesus gave up by coming to Earth.  We go without, and then Easter, as well as celebrating the resurrection, we celebrate that Christ is back to his rightful place, and that we no longer have to go without - without a way to be reconciled to our Creator, without a way of forgiveness for our sins, and without the thing we have given up, which is a symbol of those other more important things.  Giving something up is really about making us think.

I've mentioned that I have been thinking about making new goals and routines in my life; I've also wondered how to add Scripture into M's life, since our old routine of me reading to her at breakfast no longer works out so well.  So I challenged her to join me, for Lent, in reading our Bibles before anything else in our day.  It suits the purpose of being intentional about doing something for Lent (I suppose we are giving up reading what we want when we want, to give Scripture priority in our lives), it suits my purpose of building new routines, and it suits the purpose of adding Scripture into M's daily habits.

She is a bookworm, and has been bringing her book to the table for her sometimes solitary breakfast, because she always has to have something handy to read.  She seemed open to the idea, so yesterday we looked at the list of what she had read (or heard), and picked one that wasn't on there yet.  She is going to read through Acts - after reading chapter one, she turned the page, found chapter 2 started right at the top, and said, "It's done already!"  This morning she had already had breakfast when I came down, and she met me with, "I read chapter 2!"

I read a quote by a friend (tweeted by another friend) that said, "Fasting is about creating space but also about what you do with that space." (Joel Russell-Maclean)  Lent is a season with an end in sight, but it is my hope that after 6 weeks of starting her day with Scripture, it will be a habit she will keep.