Every Lent my teenage daughters give something up—or at least consider it.
It’s the usual things. Chocolate. Pop. A favorite TV show. Once Lulu gave up meat. Last year, Charlotte renounced caffeine, a sacrifice she found especially challenging since it meant going without her beloved Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar.
Still, she told me, it was easier than the other act of self-denial she’d been contemplating: “no technology”—that is, 40 days without Facebook or texting.
“But why are you doing it? What does it mean?” I routinely ask, hoping for some impressive spiritual motive.
Penitence, perhaps, or the desire to share in Jesus’ suffering. Judging from their answers (the universal teenage non-answer, “Just ’cuz”) and their spotty success, I’m guessing the closest they come to any spiritual goal is guilt.
“I know it’s supposed to make me think about God,” Charlotte told me last year as we neared Easter, “but, to be honest, it doesn’t always.”
Thinking about God is what Lent’s about. Having discovered my faith after spending two decades abstaining from everything God-related—decades of lonely, hungry atheism that might be called “my long Lent”—I like to devote the Lenten period to seeking out and indulging in God’s presence.
Lent doesn’t always mean forbidding ourselves some pleasure. It can be an opportunity to seek the pleasure of God’s presence.
Read the rest of the essay:
5 Things to Take Up This Lent - Guideposts
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