I grew up in a Christian home and church that didn’t observe Lent. I knew of it, but it wasn’t something I ever put into practice. I always thought it was more of a Catholic thing, something that had no bearing on my faith. But over the past few years, I’ve thought about the practice of observing Lent and the idea of giving up something I love for 40 days, to give honor and glory to the suffering Jesus Christ endured for me.
I’ll be honest: my faith is not where it should be right now. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been to church. I read my Bible, but I rarely pray unless it’s to ask for something. I feel so far from God and I feel so confused about my faith lately. I know what it is and I know what I stand for, but I struggle sometimes to put it into practice. I struggle to be of the world.
My idea for observing Lent this year comes from a selfish place: wanting to get control over some of my addictive habits. But I thought long and hard about my desire to do this and I feel like using Lent as my guide for why I’m doing this will help me to carry it out to fullness.
So for the next 40 days, I will be completely eliminating all chocolate and soda from my diet.
My two biggest vices are my soda and chocolate consumption and it is going to take so much willpower to resist them for 40 days straight. I know it will be hard, but I also know I am capable enough to do this. I have it in me to eliminate two things that bring me great joy and pleasure. (But also, admittedly, intense feelings of guilt and failure.) It’s a different kind of suffering, a first-world kind of suffering if you will. But Lent is about giving up something that you love, something that will cause you to try to understand the depth of Christ’s sacrifice.
Ideally, I would love to stop drinking soda period, because it brings absolutely zero health benefits and is just horrid for my body. Plus, I drink regular soda (although I honestly don’t feel like diet soda is any better) so that’s a lot of sugar going into my body on almost a daily basis.
As for sweets, I want to eliminate them for 40 days and then slowly add them back into my life on a more moderate basis. (As of right now, I eat sweets daily, sometimes two or three times a day. Bad, I know!) I want sweets to be a special treat, not a daily occurrence.
By eliminating soda and sweets, I will be severely cutting down on extra calories, fat, and sugar, which will help with weight loss efforts. And more than losing weight (though that is a major benefit!), I think it will help me feel better. It will help me feel better physically – by giving me more energy and forcing me to snack better. And it will also help me to feel better emotionally – by proving to myself I can resist something I love for a period of time and also to find better coping skills for when I have a bad day. (You can keep the wine. When I’ve had a bad day, nothing cheers me up faster than a cold Dr. Pepper and some cookies.)
I am prepared to see this through to the end, so feel free to text me, message me, email me, leave a comment, or do whatever to ask how I’m doing throughout these next 40 days. Knowing people are going to be asking me about it is just what I need to make sure I don’t give up. (Accountability is so key, especially when it comes to losing weight.)
I’ve always been intrigued by the practice of observing Lent because I believe giving something up for 40 days that you think you can’t live without is something we should all try to do. Maybe it’s social media for you, or watching TV, or complaining about trivial matters, or sleeping in, or eating meat. Whatever it is, whatever your beliefs, giving it up for a period of time will only prove how capable you are of doing something you never thought you could do. And only gives you a jumping-off point to try to do more things outside your comfort zone.
Are you observing Lent this year? If you had to give something up for 40 days, what would you choose?
I always give something up for Lent – I know some people do something small instead. I try to have it be something clever that really affects me, even if it seems silly. One year I gave up painting my nails, another year I gave up the snooze button – this year I was contemplating giving up social media but I’m honestly not on it that much so I don’t know how much of a sacrifice that would be. I’ll have to think of something today since it starts tomorrow! Good luck with chocolate and soda!
I’m not religious but I usually participate in Lent for the purpose of just thinking more about my life and the choices I make. I’ve been toying with giving up alcohol, so I have about 12 more hours to decide on that. However the thing I have absolutely decided to do is to participate in my own “days of happiness” photo challenge. I feel like I’m too negative these days, and I want to remember one thing that makes me happy every day, to intentionally be positive about my life. It’s too good not to appreciate it.
I am a diet coke and chocolate addict so I know how hard this be will for you but I KNOW you can do it!
I’m not religious, so I have never observed Lent, but if I had to give something up for 40 days, I think it would be social media. I spend waaaaay too much time online, so I think eliminating Facebook/Twitter/Instagram from my life for 40 days would be greatly beneficial for my life. It’s amazing how much time I spend on it now, considering it didn’t even exist 10 years ago.
Girl, I am right there with you. I need something that is going to jump start me, and with Lent starting, it is the perfect time. I’m going to give up soda and sweet tea — something I was able to give up at the beginning of January, and then fell off the bandwagon. I’ll be praying for you, sweet friend!
I wish you luck. I know a lot of people who’ve been hooked on soda and giving up was huge for them.
I’ve always been thankful that I’ve had pretty good teeth, no fillings yet and only recently did I connect the dots … I don’t drink caffeine, very little booze, juice, or fizzy drinks, it’s 99% water for me. I also don’t like lollies, though I do like cake, ice cream, chocolate in reasonable amounts.
Good luck! I don’t observe lent but I did give up sugar for 6 weeks last year. The first weekish is the hardest part and then it will be smooth sailing. So if it feels like TORTURE during the first few days just tell yourself it’ll get easier, because it will! I think it takes 3 days for all the sugar to get out of your body and therefore that long for your cravings to go away, or at least reduce.
Since I am Catholic I have always observed Lent and started giving up things from a very young age. Some things I have given up are tv, alcohol, and soda. This year I am giving up all sweets. I think it will be a challenge as I tend to reward myself with things like macarons during tough/stressful weeks but I like the challenge of giving something up for 40 days. Good luck giving up soda and chocolate!
I don’t always observe Lent, but I am this year. I plan to give up time on my phone in the evenings. I spend way too much time playing solitaire meaninglessly flipping through Facebook and Twitter and generally wasting time. So I want that to change. I’m putting down my phone and hopefully replacing it with some regular quiet time. We’ll see how it goes.
I was going to give something up but then it was Lent and I forgot to pick something so now I’m not really observing this year. I almost always go with the old standby of chocolate but I tried that in January and it didn’t work so well. Honestly, the real reason is because I realized it was the first day of Lent as I was tossing chocolate chips in my mouth, ha. I’m not Catholic but I grew up in a Lutheran church and still attend but we never really placed a huge emphasis on giving anything up.