Sundays Don't Count

Don't ask me why...but the Sundays in Lent don't count.  That is why we only count 40 days in the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  There are more than 40 days, but Sundays don't count.  Hey!  I didn't make the rules.

So I thought I would give a little more explanation about this short-term blog.  I read about a challenge for the Lenten season where people were going to declutter their spaces as a spiritual discipline by bagging up excess stuff during Lent.  There were all sorts of spins on it as I researched it and I can't say where the original idea came from.  Some folks are more environmentally concerned.  Some are just beyond what they can handle with stuff and need to clean out.

My initial reaction was that this is just GREAT!  I have to tell you, I have stuff that needs to go out the door and this sounded like just the ticket.  The end result of at least 40 bags less of stuff in my house that seems to be closing in on me by the week...that was terrific.

Until I really meditated on it.  While the end result would be fantastic, Lent is about more.  It is about spiritual discipline and finding ways to become closer to God.  To set apart those things that keep me from Him.  Which is why I've always been a bit skittish about the whole 'giving up for Lent' deal.  I know many people who have chosen to  give up coffee, chocolate, sweets, etc.  But if those things really keep me from God, maybe I ought to give them up forever...not just for Lent.

And, if you are a giver-upper and that is meaningful for you...I don't mean any disrespect.  It just hasn't worked for me. And I've tried.  I found that I whined about what I wasn't getting, obsessed on what I was 'giving up' and was thinking  more about the loophole of Sundays, which don't count than I was progressing spiritually.

As I pondered this, it came to me that each bag I filled with the excess stuff in my home had some sort of meaning and that if I looked at it more along the lines of cleaning out my heart of excess, I might come through the Lenten season with a clean heart and right spirit.  That, dear friends, it what I'm talking about. 

That is what really matters. 

It will be nice to have less stuff in my house.  But when Easter Morning dawns...I want my heart to be truly clean and ready to welcome the Risen Savior. 

Thus...the Bags.  My life will be a bit more decluttered, but my fervent prayer is that my heart will be much cleaner. 

Bagging up stuff is easy. 

The heart-work is not.

~Mollianne