on lent//on love.

every year about this time i get to thinking about what i might give up for the forty day season of lent.  i started observing lent when i was 16 years old.  i remember thinking my vow to give up soda & television was quite admirable.  however, by day three, i was ready to scratch wallpaper off the walls and scream bloody murder. i just couldn't do it.  well, the television part i barely managed, but the soda part...it just didn't work out so well.  my main source of sugar and caffeine during a particularly stressful time was difficult to avoid.  i realize now, looking back, just how vain my "lent attempts" were those first few years.  i honestly had no real concept of the authentic desire that should exist behind the sacrifice.  i just thought i should give up something i like to do on a daily basis and somehow it would magically make me a better person by thinking about God more and doing insert habit here less.  and it didn't.  the only thing it really taught me was to be less dependent on unconscious habits.  which is pretty much the obvious result.

so i got to thinking, what if lent was really about love?  what if behind the sacrifice lied an effort to love better?  to love the Lord better, and by default love myself better, and therefore, love others better?

i was at the store the other night speaking to one of the regulars and we were talking about the things that hold us back.  you know, those heavy weighted things that slow us down, and press in so hard that we can barely breathe sometimes.  he asked me what mine was and i said, "fear."  "no, but what is it really?" he pressed, saying he thought  we call too many things in our lives fear.  fear is the big blanket that many smaller things fall under and get lost in.  sure the root is fear, but what does fear act out as?  i pondered this for a moment. i looked at him and shrugged my shoulders.  "it just feels like fear."  he smiled at me.  "what if you could let go of self doubt?"  his comment visibly startled me.  how did this man, who knows me only as the maker of his latte, have me pinned down so well? though truly, i knew.  deep down i know.  it is the suppression i am so skilled at that fools me into thinking i am okay.   but it is self doubt that holds me back.  it is self doubt that whispers little lies, and sometimes even erupts like a volcano at the worst moments.  self doubt is that pervasive insecurity, that deep seeded false truth that tells me constantly, i'm not good enough, with a list of reasons covering a-z.

that took me years and years to figure out, and he knew it straight away from a few casual conversations. guess i'm not as good at faking it as i thought.

perhaps it is self doubt that hinders my effort to love, rather than, t.v. watching, or eating, or shopping, etc.  perhaps it is self doubt that drives me to shop, eat, or numb my mind in front of the television.  perhaps it is that blanket of fear that has kept me from identifying exactly what it was that holds me back.

maybe that's is what i will give up.  because i wholly believe letting go of self doubt means learning to love & trust God more.  letting go of self doubt means loving and accepting myself more.  and i really believe that the more i love and trust God, and the more i love and accept myself, the more love i will have to pour into others.