Why I love Lent

       Today is Ash Wednesday. . . a significant day on the Catholic church calendar.  Not growing up Catholic, this day has meant little to me for most of my life.  But this morning I feel all the anticipation of a child starting the Christmas season.  This day begins the season of Lent:  forty days leading up to the celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday.  Over the last few years, Lent has become an increasingly beautiful season for me.   
     Appropriately, Lent means spring.  It symbolizes a time of renewal and rebirth, of things being made new.  Spiritually, Lent invites us to focus on the centerpiece of Christianity:  the death and resurrection of Christ.  At Christmas we remember the fact that Jesus really was born, Son of God into this place of humanity.  At Lent we remember the fact that Jesus really died and He really rose from the dead.  These facts are startling, disruptive, extravagant.  They should make us sit up, take notice, even jump up and down!  But most of the time we forget their significance.  We read our Bible, we go to church, we pray. . . and internally we yawn, because the startling has become stale.  The beautiful has become ordinary.  The miraculous has become mundane. 
    Lent is an invitation to remember the significance of Christ's claims.  I love what Ty Saltzgiver writes in "40 Days of Lent":  Lent is a time to "celebrate Jesus and to let His Death and Resurrection be central in our lives.  Lent is a time for sacrifice and self-examination, for increased self-awareness and God-awareness, for spiritual refocus and renewing of our conversion, for seeing our own need for Grace, and for opening our hearts to be more captured by Jesus' love."
    I love the practices of "giving up" and "taking on" during the Lent season.  We give up something that is difficult and sacrificial, in order to remember Christ's sufferings and ultimate sacrifice.  What I give up is almost always some type of food, because food is something I love.  Whether celebrating or struggling, I run to food for my comfort.  Giving up desserts or bread or caffeine always leads to repentance on my part.  I am a comfort creature, who will let other things usurp Christ's place in my life.  On a hard day, I can be placated with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and never turn towards the Savior who offers me so much more.  "Giving up" something of power in my life, puts a spiritual magnifying glass on the state of my soul.  I see the idols that compete for the centrality in my life that belongs to Christ alone.  I repent.  I am renewed.  I am reconnected with Christ.
   I also love "taking on"a practice that will nurture my soul in a special way.  Usually for me it is a special devotional guide or a book.  Some years I have prayed on my knees every morning.  This year, I want to keep a "thankfulness journal," writing down something I am thankful for each day.  Whatever I choose, it heightens my awareness of Christ.  It leads me to contemplate and worship Him as my Savior.
    But what I most love about Lent is how it prepares my heart for Easter!  After six weeks of intentionally focusing on the life and death of Christ, I am ready to celebrate his resurrection.  Easter morning breaks like a sunrise over my heart.  I am filled with awe and gratitude at this God, whose hearts beats for redemption and who gave everything to make me His child.  The mundane becomes miraculous!