Lent

My ever-humorous brother (who else sends Sarcasm Wednesday cards??) sent me a note today asking:

What are you giving up for Lent? Your New Year's Resolution? Your sobriety? Your good judgement and personal restraint?

which was a nice follow up to the suggestion at my small group last night to give up sin for Lent.

Nice!

I read a great blog the other day about Lent which points to the importance of fasting, prayer and acts of service during Lent. I'm pretty sure fasting from your sobriety wasn't what they were thinking about.

Anyhow, in answer to the question that's been weighing on all of your minds, I'm giving up refined sugar for Lent. Seems like a small thing, but to someone who appears to live on muffins, diet Coke, etc, it's a big thing. No sucralose. No asperatame. No sugar. No cane syrup. No high fructose corn syrup. Which makes having a bad sweet tooth a bit of a drag. So, kudos to all those companies who don't fill their products full of sugar. You're making my life a whole lot easier. Did you know dried fruit is full of sugar?? What's with that? It's fruit. Fruit has it's own sugar - why do you need to add more? Pasta sauce is full of sugar. Huh? Salad dressing? This is a conspiracy people!

Off to the Ash Wednesday service tonight. I'm thankful that the season of Lent is here. It's a good time to stop and focus again. I've been feeling a drift and it's time to get re-centered.