Progress, not perfection...

Jesus walks with you, he renews your heart and strengthens you with the vigour of his Spirit. --Ven. Pope John Paul II

Lent is hard! I am just gonna be blunt and say it like it is--it's so hard. Now don't get me wrong, grace does ease the tension, but it does not take away from the fact that I want, what I gave up, or that I do not want to do what I added to my life.

It is hard to change and be different.  It almost seems like a greater challenge everyday.  I find that lent would not also be so difficult if I weren't being bullied everyday alongside the sacrifice I chose to make. Bullied, tempted, attacked, whatever way you would like to call it--but Satan is definitely on the prowl during this time of year, probably more heavily then he usually is.  I believe because their is more of an effort to try to be better then what we were, and well, HE HATES THAT!!! I mean you want to get to mass more, and well you will hit every red light possible.  You want to wake up earlier to pray, well then you keep hitting snooze and now you're just late for work. 

The fact of the matter is that there is clearly a battle for each one of our souls that is always happening whether we are aware of it or not.  I think we just begin to see it more clearly when we start to fix our eyes more our Lord, but most especially during the season of lent.

So where are you right now? Has it been difficult for you to stay on board with the sacrifice made? Well if the answer is that you have tried and failed,  then this lent seems like it is starting off pretty well! I say that because it is inevitable that we fall.  We are gonna walk and we are gonna fall flat on our faces.   

In my experience, I always think I can do what I say I am gonna do. I almost feel like..."really, how hard could it be?" And then God allows me to experience it's difficulty, so that a greater good may spring forth from that fall-- humility--the gift that leads me right where God wants me-- in His arms!! He reminds me with every fall of my need for him. He reminds me with every prick of the crown of thorns that He loves me so much more then I could imagine, and he reminds me with every hit from the whip of impurity that hits my body that strength is purified in weakness.

How truly great is God? He knew, he just knew that we would go through everything that we are going through in this very moment-- even as read right now.  He knew every hurt, every wound, and every anxiety, every torment and every lonely moment you would suffer. He knew what you would sacrifice this lent in some way, and he knew that it would be a challenge for you to do it.  He knew that we would fall short of the expectation we set for ourselves.  He knew all this, and let us fall. Not because he wants to see us fall, but because he wants to pick us up.  He wants to be everything to you.  He wants us to depend on him alone.  He wants nothing in the way of that dependence on him. 

What always seems to get in the way of that full dependence on God, for me, is me.  My pride, my self-centeredness, me, me, me...when it is all about me, it can't be about him, and well in that case,  it can't really be about anyone else either.  Lent is time for me to find out what I am made of and also whom I am made of, and that is God!! Lent is a time to rise to a challenge and see our limitations as humans and see how everything is possible if we put God in the center of it.  Lent is a time for growth and humility, both which will ultimately lead us to Love itself. 

Are you feeling discouraged already? Rise up and keep running the race. As St Paul states: Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. (1 Cor 9: 24 &25) 

Let us continue on and with every fall, rise, knowing that what we are racing for is an imperishable prize, that is, eternity--something that will not be attained overnight.  

The more we rise after each fall, the stronger we become.  No matter how far you have fallen, God's mercy and grace are always there to pick us back up, clean us off and push us onward and upward. 
Yes we will fight, and yes we will lose, but the loss will only help us lose the parts of us that keep us away from His loving heart. 

It is his passion and death that will be our food this lent. It will be the thing that encourages us and nourishes our souls as we walk this difficult walk with him. Jesus went through many of the sufferings we would have to endure, whether in an exact way, or by the way the certain situations made us feel.  He knows what it is like to be tempted, he knows what it is like to suffer humiliations, he knows what it is like to have a friend betray him, he knows what is like to be rejected, and  he knows what it is like to fall when striving to do the will of God!  Lean on him, trust in him and know that if you give him everything, he will give you everything.

-- Christine