My First Lent

I was in sixth grade on a bus going into Seattle with a group of other youth, and one of the girls casually asked me:  "So, what are you giving up for Lent?"

I was embarrassed.  As a missionary kid, it seemed like I should have known what Lent was, and once it was explained to me, it seemed that as a good Christian girl I should have partaken in the tradition.  Following that, I never remembered when Lent began, and then it was "too late" to begin fasting.

Lent is typically referred to as the forty days prior to Jesus' death, i.e. the forty days before Good Friday is over and "It is finished."  But wow, there are a lot of ways people have participated throughout the years!  Some people fast for 46 days by continuing to fast through Sundays.  Some engage in a partial food fast, like skipping lunch or avoiding animal products.  Some people make an effort to abstain from a certain sin.  Some give up special things like chocolate or soda.  Historically, it was sometimes even practiced for only a few days before.

What is the purpose of Lent?

I always thought it was supposed to be a poor way to show solidarity with Jesus' 40-day fast in the wilderness.  But now that seems ridiculous to me!  It's laughable to think that giving up chocolate even remotely compares to Christ's fast and his temptations.  Not to mention Sundays are "feast days" which traditionally aren't included in Lent (otherwise it's 46 days) and we know that Jesus didn't take Sundays off from his fast.

I want to emphasize here that Lent is a church tradition and Protestants, as far as I know, do not consider it a required practice because it is never mentioned in the Bible.  I believe this also gives us the opportunity to refrain from announcing our fasts to others, which may appear as boasting or "holier than thou."  (However, I think there is something beautiful about participating as a community.)  For me, this was a quiet ongoing experience between me and God as I realized over and over how incapable I am of resisting even slight temptations.

From my experience, I now see Lent as a constant opportunity to be aware of my own weakness, which makes Christ's death even more significant.  I feel the need to emphasize that in my moments of weakness I didn't actually sin, because this was a resolution I, not God, put myself under.  But if I can't even keep myself from eating cake batter, how much more helpless am I when I actually sin?  How much more do I require God's grace? This period helped me to be more aware of that.

My "fast" was to avoid sweets.  Here are some experiences I had:

• Several times I was in a situation where others would have thought it odd if I didn't partake of something sweet (like when we sat around the kitchen table eating cookies I had made), and as I mentioned before I had chosen not to disclose my participation in Lent.  So I partook.
• Several times I honestly forgot.  I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, remembered that I was avoiding sweets, and ate it anyway because I was so hungry I felt dizzy.  I popped a few Skittles in my mouth at a party before I remembered my resolution.  I licked the cookie dough off my fingers.  Things like that.
• I was sick for nearly the whole month of March.  I took cherry-flavored cough syrup, honey-lemon cough drops and tea, and a lot of ginger ale, which was the only thing that helped my stomach.  Gatorade kept me from being dehydrated.
• I tended to distract myself from my cravings with things other than prayer or meditation as intended:  other junk food, reading, computer games, etc.
• Since historically Sundays are considered a "feast day," I partook of sweets on Sundays.  Not that I gorged myself.  Some Sundays I didn't eat any sweets because I didn't feel the urge.  Again, my period of self-denial lasted 40 days because I skipped Sundays, whereas it would have been 46 days if I'd continued it on Sundays.
• At one point I almost had some sugar-free gum to satisfy a craving, as if it were a loop hole!!

Only once did I deliberately break my resolution.  It started by accidentally licking cake batter off my finger, and then suddenly I "needed" more and kept snacking on it.  Wow, the slippery path to temptation!  It only took a little bit for me to fall. Just another reminder of my weakness.

These 40 days have been long.  It has been a period of waiting...waiting for Christ to demonstrate his victory over death, his fuilfillment of the law.  In no way do I compare my struggle with his; instead this experience made me more aware of the significance of his experience before and during his death.

Also, I lost five pounds.

Now I need to go, because I'm going to have some cake.