Lent 2021

In figuring out how to answer the questions that swirl around this time of year - questions like:

What do you normally turn to instead of Jesus for comfort, commendation, meaning...?

or 

What habits or tendencies of self-absorption do you possess? (I was really embarrassed by what that line of questions revealed.)  

Immediately as I am journaling through these questions, I thought about all of the time I have tried to "fast" from some of my "coping" mechanisms:

No sugar...made it two days.

No chocolate...made it a week.

No instagram...ummm did I even make it two hours???

The list goes on and on and on.  

Epic failures, broken promises, and grand statements of 'I am going to go 30 days, 40 days...(whatever the time set aside was supposed to be), without _____________(chocolate, sugar, social media etc;).  Yet, I did not do it.  Not a single time.

So this morning I prayed a simple prayer - God, show me what grieves You most in me.  And you know what came to mind?  It wasn't my junk food addiction, and it wasn't my chocolate consumption...those are real things, but for me, those are symptoms of something deeper.  

God brought to mind two things:

self-pity (you know the parties you throw and try as you might you pretty much end up being a perpetual party of one...because really, who wants to come to your pity party and listen to you whine?) 

and

worry thoughts (what if thinking...worst case scenario imaginations...)

Digging deeper still, I realized several roots are attached to the fruits of self-pity and worry/anxious thinking.  A sense of entitlement, discontentment/envy, unrealistic expectations, unbelief, and ungratefulness.  

YUCK.  ☹

I am a pro at spotting these qualities in others, but a little (OK a LOT) inept at seeing them in myself.  I wallow in self-pity quite often, I spend so much time worrying about what might happen that I miss what is happening, I do not lay down my life, deny myself, and pick up my cross to run my race because I am so busy and distracted thinking about all that is going wrong, comparing my life to someone else's and asking "well why can't I have____________ or our lives be like _______________?"

So, this year for Lent, I decided I would fast from self-pity and worry thoughts.  I am asking God for a complete make-over in my mind and my heart this lent.  That I would not be the same person forty (ish) days from now.  

And then, after I have dealt with the root cause, maybe I will be better prepared to tackle the sugar and chocolate.