Lessons About Giving Up Negativity: My Lenten Update

 

photo by garibaldi

It's a lot easier to resist to chocolate or give up soda. We're nearing the end of Lent, and my goal to give up negativity has proved much more difficult than I'd anticipated.

It's hard! It's hard to be hyper-aware of what you're saying. It's hard to apologize and repent when you let negativity slip. It's hard to keep reminding yourself, "Don't be negative, don't be negative," when you're chatting up a storm. It's hard to keep praying for strength to be positive when you're not seeing much result.

And so, little by little, I have drawn away from those principles and gone lax on my Lenten promise. I'm sorry to say I wasn't just a couple weeks into it when I let it start to fall by the wayside and retreated back to "normal." It just got too hard to keep up with it every day, every sentence, every time I opened my mouth.

I realized this the other day with disappointment. Of course it was never meant to be something I'd "go back to" when Lenten was up. It was a challenge intended to be a seed for the rest of my life, something I would continually grow and prune and eventually see a harvest for.

Even as Lent draws to an end and Easter looms (celebration! hope! redemption!), I come back again, tail between legs, to this heart challenge. To go back, and try, try again. To keep learning, to keep striving, until the ultimate Easter occurs.

God is strong and can help you not to fall. 

He can bring you before his glory without any wrong in you 

and can give you great joy. He is the only God, the One who saves us. 

To him be glory, greatness, power, and authority through
Jesus Christ our Lord for all time past, now, and forever. Amen.

Jude 13:24-25

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Becoming Vulnerable: The Power of Confession

photo by g_sinchon

Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. - James 4:8

There was a time two summers ago that was nothing out of the ordinary, yet it’s remained in my memory ever since: I had been in a funk—those seasons that inevitably settle upon you for one reason or another. I knew what I needed to do (draw near to God) but my heart just wasn’t in it.

Instead, I decided to meet up with a friend, where I just let it all out. I kept talking and confessing everything that was burdening me and holding me down. And it was in that moment, in that conversation of releasing everything pit up–as hard or lame as some of it is to admit–the weight was lifted.

In Lauren Winner’s book, “Girl Meets God” she talks about how she started going to see a priest routinely to confess her sins, even though she’s not Catholic. She talks about how it’s in God’s nature to take the ordinary and everyday and use it to purify us and draw us closer to him: water gives us new birth in baptism; bread reminds us of the price Jesus paid and brings us close to him in the Eucharist; and God also draws us closer to him when we confess our sins–to ordinary people, just like each and every one of us.

Our inclination is to bottle up our imperfections and smudge over them so no one can tell. Or if we do tell, we tell people who will have the right answers or perhaps the people who are worse off than ourselves. But we don’t want to risk tarnishing our image or our reputation. So our sins cower deep inside. But when we become vulnerable and break down walls and open up about our shortcomings, especially to other ordinary, broken individuals, a surprising bit of healing can come through that.

And that’s what happened on that seemingly insignificant Wednesday, as my friend and I sipped Starbucks and sat on a curb in the parking lot and just talked. As we talked, I could feel my funk lifting, my heart getting inflated again and swelling back up. I came home that night, renewed…

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you will be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
James 5:16

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Breaking down over a broken computer

Ugh.

Have you ever had one of those days that starts off beautifully—birds are chirping, you’re feeling good about everything on your to-do list, like the world is going your way. Then, out of nowhere you’re hit with a semi-truck that makes you want to pull out your “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” book and commiserate?

That was my Saturday. It started out lovely—waking up early, doing laundry, paying bills, making yogurt, baking bread. My husband worked all day on his papers due this week for finals, so for dinner we went out to this hip little Mexican shop where they were playing Feist and we got dessert and went to a coffee shop afterward. A cinema-worthy day, right? Totally.

But then we got home. We checked the mail, and I had a letter about my freelancer taxes not going through. This is an issue I’ve been trying to get fixed since September and has yet to be resolved. Then, I decided to take my laptop into the bedroom and snuggle in with a movie while Michael finished working on one of his papers. What happens? But I drop my laptop. And by drop, I mean it grows wings and flies out of my hands and crashes on the hardwood below. I have absolutely no idea how it happened except that when it did, I knew the thing was broken. Broken.

What did I do? I went in the bedroom and cried. I cried and told God how mad I was at him. Even typing it, I realize how not-a-big-deal these two incidents are. But at the time, they were huge with snarling mouths and glaring eyes.

At that moment, I was convinced: That I had messed up—yet again. That here I am trying to help us with our finances for the future, and instead I go and break something that costs hundreds of dollars to replace. That God was against me, not for me. Of course those are all lies (from Satan, “the father of lies,” John 8:44), but at the moment, I was convinced of them and consumed by them.

Then my husband edged into the bedroom. I was still fuming at God, at myself, when he crawled in bed and wrapped an arm around me. I know that God speaks himself and through the Bible, but he also speaks through other people. He was speaking through my husband during that time, as he was so understanding, so gentle, so encouraging while I poured out what I was feeling and all my anger.

As I did, the angst-filled fog began to clear. I saw that it’s just a computer. I saw how many good things we have and how many blessings we’ve received, time and time again—how this doesn’t even compare to those good things. I saw how limited my perspective was, and how I have no idea what God has in store. I began to trust him again.

Then, I felt the peace of God, that “which transcends all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7) We crawled under the covers and I apologized to God for my hissy fit, for my lack of faith and my lack of trust in him. I apologized to my husband for my unjustified anger over things that don’t merit it one bit. And to my surprise, I slept so soundly, and woke up with that peace still covering me like a warm, cozy blanket. What a gracious heavenly Father we have.

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