No, It's Not Thanksgiving......It's Lent

I was playing around on the internets yesterday, trying to find a few things to read as I prepared for Lent to begin (yes, I know, I know...I was a bit late, but life's been crazy lately!).  I was heading out to an Ash Wednesday version of XLT here in town, and I knew that I hadn't really spent that much time preparing for Lent.  Sure, I'd been to Adoration the night before, and really tried to discern what God was asking of me this Lenten season, but that was really the extent of my preparation.   I hadn't even figured out what was going to be my Lenten sacrifice yet this year. 

In my internet wandering, I stumbled across a couple of cool lists:  25 Creative Things and 20 Weird Things to give up for Lent.  In reading through them, I found one idea in particular kept jumping out at me:

Every day take a picture of something or someone you’re grateful for and hang the pictures in your room

Now, I'll be the first to admit that while I LOVE the idea of hanging the pictures in my room, or somewhere in my house.....I won't do that.  Printing one picture a day and heading to the store to pick them up, with three boys in tow isn't at all something that I would actually do.  (Unless...someone knows of a local photo center that I can just drive through......)

I still find myself drawn to this idea, though.  I've been struggling with remaining grateful recently, and trying not to get depressed when it seems like I'm surrounded everywhere with anger, with pain, with bitterness.   I know that God is asking me to work on trusting Him for this Lenten season, and allowing myself to fall more deeply in love with Him over the next 40 days.  How better to fall in love with someone than to read love letters from them?

That's what these blessings are:  love letters from a God who is madly in love with me, and only wants for me to love him back, completely and recklessly.   

So, in addition to my Lenten sacrifice (yes, I did find something to "give up" that will give me PLENTY of opportunities to focus on Him), I will be using this blog to complete another challenge:  6 weeks of pictures.  Pictures of what God is blessing me with.  The goal will be to try and take a picture a day, and not pull from past pictures...but to recognize something in that day that is a sign of God's love for me, starting today. 

I hope you enjoy it - and I challenge you to do something similar in your Lenten journey this year!