Thank you for putting up with me sharing with you excerpts from Ann's posts. There is just something about her "simple" way of seeing Jesus daily in her farming life that gets me. Many times while reading her posts I close my eyes and feel like I'm sitting at a ladies retreat somewhere away from it all, refreshing. I hear her like I'd hear a speaker we've asked to come and share what God has laid on her heart to speak to us about. I relax, I focus, I breath fresh ideas, new ideas about our Heavenly Abba Father and Jesus, who is the very air I breath. I need that. I've only left a comment on her site once, and through Grandma Christine she has been to my site at least once to read Jacob's adoption story. Grandma has known her through the home school world, and I just randomly found her, it is so GOD that we made the connection. Isn't is grand how God gives us just what we need when we need it? So here I go again.....thoughts from Ann on celebrating Lent. I so appreciate the challenge to look again at something I thought was not for me, why not? I'm challenged to find out....
"I can’t seem to follow through in giving up for Lent --which makes me want to just give up Lent. Which makes me question who I am following.
Which may precisely be the point of Lent."
Lent isn’t about forfeiting as much as it’s about formation.We renounce to be reborn; we let go to become ‘little Christs’. Here: We break away to become.”
“Don’t think of lent as about working your way to salvation. Think of it as working out your salvation.”
"Christ does not exist in order to make much of us.
We exist in order to enjoy making much of him.
Christ is not glorious so that we get wealthy or healthy.
Christ is glorious, so that rich or poor, sick or sound, we might be satisfied in him."
"While my particular denomination does not traditionally celebrate Lent, I have come to appreciate its relevance. As we prepare to celebrate Easter, perhaps we should all use the next few weeks to focus less on our physical appetites and more on our spiritual needs. Perhaps such meditation would lead us to appreciate anew the cost of grace and the victory of the empty tomb."-Elliott Ryan
I Cannot Do This Alone
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
- a poem included in Devotions for Lent, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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