I love Lent

Today is the first Sunday in Lent. This may mean nothing to you or it may conjur up images of works-based religion that seems to spit in the face of the grace offered by Jesus.

For me, though, this is a special season in the church year. First, it marks one year that I've been regularly attending my little Anglican Church that I have come to love and appreciate so much. I first visited last year in March in the middle of Lent and stayed. I fell in love with the Anglican tradition enough to move towards it on a more permanent basis because of Lent.

Second, I appreciate both the somberness of reflecting on my life and moving towards greater self-control and discipline for a set period of time and also the concurrent anticipation of Easter and remembering why I call myself a Christian in the first place - because I believe in a God who cared enough to become like me, die, and then come back to life with the promise that I too can be whole, clean, healed, and reconciled back to Him.

Really, a little more self-control and discipline in life, whether physically or spiritually, is never a bad thing, and I think I would benefit much from having a Lenten attitude throughout the whole year, not just Lent. But I'll start small.

At my church during Lent, the pastor offers a time of confession before the service. I've never gone to confession before and didn't really know what to think about it, but some things were weighing very heavily on my heart this morning and I decided to go.

It turns out, it's strange and a little uncomfortable to confess things out loud to another person, especially a person I don't know extremely well, and because I have easy tears, I was bawling from pretty much the moment he said "Good morning." But as we moved through the confession, words from James came to mind, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

Father Steve listened patiently through my tears and shaking words, and in all gentleness offered some scripture for me to meditate on this week and then reminded me that my sins are forgiven, that the price on my head has been paid for, and there is now no guilt or condemnation that need remain in my heart or mind. He prayed for me and as we closed our brief time together, I felt healing begin.

So I love Lent. I love that there are weeks set aside on purpose to reflect on where sin lingers too much still in my life and seek God's help and healing in those areas, while remembering that at the end of this season we will celebrate Easter, the day when death and sin lost the battle for my soul.

We sang a bunch of older hymns today too, which I always appreciate. One of them was "Commit Thou All That Grieves Thee." Each verse is a reminder to commit everything that is grieving your heart to God. My heart is grieving much right now, but I was encouraged by these words in the final verse, and I hope that you are too:

"Hope on, then, broken spirit;
Hope on, be not afraid.
Fear not the griefs that plague thee
And keep thy heart dismayed.
Thy God, in His great mercy,
Will save thee, hold thee fast
And in His own time grant thee
The sun of joy at last."