Lent is Coming...

Lent is hard.  I always think of it as this grey barren wind-swept plain of our faith, or to quote Douglas Adams, "the long dark teatime of the soul." 

And to be honest, I kind of love it for that.  It's cold and bleak and makes us take a long look at our lives and the state of our souls.  Lent is a time to pare down what we dislike about ourselves and try to build up what is good and pleasing to God.  I'm kind of lazy when it comes to challenging myself to be better.  Lent is 40 days in which the point is kind of to make myself work harder at being who I actually want to be instead of who I am used to being. 

This year I resolve during Lent to work harder at generally cleaning the house more regularly, things like sweeping and vacuuming weekly, and doing dishes nightly instead of pretending I don't see them as they pile up on the counter.  Picking up the nursery and our bedroom because it is very easy to think to myself, "no one ever sees these rooms, so it doesn't matter if they look like this."  I actually like having a clean house, I just don't enjoy all the work that goes into it.

I also resolve to be less offended by the tone of peoples' voices when they talk to me, because tone is so easy to misinterpret.  And, I hope to try to be more diligent about saying my Rosary.  I would also like to write more.

So, Lent is coming, I'm going to be as hopeful as I can in the next week.

But really, Ash Wednesday makes me cringe.