Bring it, Brene.

Fasting.

Does that word make you as hungry as it makes me?

It's that beautiful time in the liturgical season when Lent is so close you can taste it and you start eating everything you are contemplating giving up in mass quantities just in case you decide to give that thing up.

But then if you are like me, you never actually give it up.

I have been of the I don't give something up for Lent because I choose to take something on club for many many years. What that has really meant for me is I love excess and have horrible impulse control so instead of doing something difficult like fasting from any part of my fluffy life, I will just add more to my overcrowded plate... but I will phrase it in a way that makes me sound spiritually evolved.  

Guess what, friends.  I am not spiritually evolved.  I am spiritually numb.

I am reading Brene Brown at the moment and she speaks about the importance of vulnerability so I am practicing it now.  This Lent.  With you watching.

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ― Brene Brown

So this Lent I am saying... Bring it Brene!

Vulnerable confession: My life is so loud that I am having a really hard time hearing God lately.  The loud is my own doing, my own planning, my own turning on when I should be turning off.  I have felt  both numb and dumb to the movement of the Holy in my life.  This disconnect is both embarrassing and real for people working in ministry.  It's the unspoken demon that many of us battle with.  The battle of our own faith when we spend day in and day out working to nurture, reflect, and honor the faith of others.

As Lent has drawn near I know that it is time I get real with myself and my relationship with God.  It's time I start giving up some of the things that I enjoy (and that temporarily fill the hole in my soul that God desires to occupy permanently) and make room for the spirit to move through me and use me.

It's time I give something up.

A few years ago I left Facebook behind.  It was the one and only time that I have given something up for Lent and it was hard and beautiful and needed.  I am in desperate need of something hard and beautiful right now.

A few weeks ago Jay asked me, why are you never happy anymore?

Ouch.  And true.  And pretty painful.  I mean he is the grumpy one and I am Miss Mary Sunshine.  How dare HE call ME out on being down.  

Once I stopped being angry about what he said (only furthering his point, which was more annoying than anything) I started to take a good look at me.  This life of mothering and ministering should bring me much more joy than it is... but because I have packed it so full there is no ROOM for joy but only room for the next thing.  There is no room for Holy because I'm not giving the Holy room to move through me.  There is no room for the unknown because I've tried to schedule the unknown right out of my life. I have found that God tends to draw closest and move most powerfully through the unknown.  I have basically been boxing God out of my own life while try to infuse Her in to others' lives.  

When I give up control, when I stop planning every minute, those are the times in my life I feel a deep sense of the presence of God, yet those are also the times I feel most uncomfortable vulnerable.  

So, I am planning for a Lent of vulnerability   

I am FASTING.  I am cutting out one thing each week of Lent. One of my major time suckers.  I am seeing what happens when I remove all the little gods from my life and give God a minute to move in me.  

What are my little gods?  I bet you can guess them...

Gym 

TV

Spending

Internet

Sweets/Treats/Extras 

Sleep 

Note: I am not saying that sleep or the internet or working out are bad things, but in my own life they become things that take away from the Holy.

From Monday-Saturday each week during Lent I will eliminate one of these things.

Pray for Jay.  And AG.  And maybe for yourself if you cross my path on week I give up going to the gym.  

I will be writing about my experiences through the week.  Why those things hold so much weight in my own life.  What spaces are being opened up and doors are being open and how God is using my fasting to feed me, which I know She will, she is only waiting for the opportunity.  I am praying that this the numbness fade and my eyes open again to the presence of Christ in my life.