40 days are crossed by six Sundays.
40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, soul-searching for a grounded identity.
40 days we are invited to do the same.
Lent is more than giving up chocolate or fasting over a period of time. Though these are good things, Lent is the essential opportunity to reset our soul's identity to be more than we can attain by ourselves.
Lent, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Lencten – meaning spring – coincides with the season where we wait expectantly for new life. Like the plants of the previous year, it requires our "dying" for a season so that something new can grow in its place, something similar but still different from who we were a year ago. That takes trust, discipline and some faith that God can work greater things in us than we can in ourselves; after all, we are dust and to dust we shall return.
So in between those two endpoints, we wear a smudge of dust on our forehead, and more importantly on our hearts, reminding us that like the spring's warmth, God is working to ground our identity, our strength, our joy, our love, our peace … in God! There will be struggle and travail, just as there was for Jesus in the wilderness and as it is for the trees and plants working to deepen their roots beneath the winter soil.
May we use these 40 days well to read Scripture, pray, fast, reflect, journal, cry out, stay humble, commune, serve, and love. For these are the fertilizers of this more dormant time. Then behold, as we emerge from Lent in 40 days for Easter and new life, and we give God all the glory!
Thanks be to God,
P.S. Part of that inner journey may include attending to your grief. we have an array of mental health resources including a session with a professional counselor this Sunday at 10 a.m. in Room 200. Also, check out these national online webinars in mid-March. Blessings in your journey.