Happy Lent!
My melancholic soul has always found Lent to rustle and stir up in me a deep connection to our Lord, our Lady, and our Faith. My heart - that feels so deeply & wrestles with darkness a little more & is fascinated by redemptive suffering - finds richness in the Lenten season.
We are asked to open up our desires, habits, and disordered attachments to our Savior, and hand them over so He may do with them as He wills.
We are asked to enter into His sufferings, to meditate upon them, meditate upon the redemption that results from His dark walk towards the cross.... and then to imitate it.
Like a child picks up his plastic hammer to imitate his father at work, we are asked to pick up and hold our tiny crosses that have been placed in our lives - those things we did not choose, do not like, and cannot change - and trust that through our own "dark walk" we will experience the same redemptive glory.
I like Lent. I like taking that time to imitate the Father. I like finding ways that my current struggles fit into His plan like a tiny puzzle piece. I like resting with Mother Mary and knowing that my struggles bring me closer in connection to her and her son.
However, this Lent is amplified and accompanied by a season of engagement. My season of engagement to Gregory (similar to most engaged couples I have spoken to) is similar to Lent, just amplified.
That patient endurance of temptations, struggles, vices laid bare, and sacrifices taken up are what categorize both seasons.
And it is so good.
However, it'll reveal areas of disordered attachments or selfishness real heckin' quick.
With long seasons of patient endurance, your vices are typically laid bare - especially when the season requires that you love another well.
In our engagement, Jesus is asking for a large amount of patient endurance, and it has revealed some things.
Firstly, its revealed that my heart is tied down by the lie that I must be self-sufficient, in control, and certain of the future to be happy and to be ok. He is asking me to patiently endure a season in which I have no control, no understanding, no certainty.
And it is showing me, real quick, how little I trust in the Father. I see that my joy is dependent upon the security and certainty I have in the future, rather than my Good and Loving Father who is caring for me in every moment - and will never stop.
It is revealing my temptation to live in the fake future I've created (where God is not), rather than the present moment graced with His blessings and presence (where God is).
And as He asks me to enter even deeper into this season of patient endurance - giving Him anything that keeps me from joyfully imitating Him in Lent - I know he is performing intricate healings in my soul and preparing me for the glory and springtime of Easter and then Marriage.
I want to be able to enter into those fully, purified from my distrusts and anxieties. And patient endurance is the fire that burns them away - purifying my heart and teaching me to trust and to be joyful when I have no certainty to grasp onto.
So, my challenge this Lent is to reflect on the patient endurance and redemptive suffering He has placed in front of YOU. It will be different than mine. What is he asking you to endure this season of Lent, and what is he trying to untie and purify through the patient enduring?
Cheers to growing closer to our Savior's heart - crushed by suffering and gloriously redemptive because of it!
Love,
Anna
(Ps, Jake and Maggie... Happy ENGAGEMENT. Let's run towards Heaven together, ok?)
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