While I’ll always love Christmas lights, Valentine’s chocolates and Halloween pumpkins, nothing trumps the excitement I feel for the stuffed plastic eggs and pastel-colored candies that come with Easter.
Easter has always held a special place in my heart, with the holiday itself and the spring season symbolizing growth and joy. This current Lenten season has presented itself to be very different compared to past years, though. It’s been full of a lot of goals related to prayer, painful awareness and genuine effort to break away from habits that have seriously hurt myself and others.
For context, this Lent I’ve been maintaining the following goals:
- Pray a Lenten novena everyday.
- Start my day with the “Ascension Lenten Companion” and end it with “Conversion to Christ Companion” and “Give Up Worry for Lent!”
- Visit church more often.
- No sweets.
- No meat on Fridays.
- One hour of social media a day.
- Volunteer somewhere at least once.
- Do one pushup, one butterfly kick and one sit-up everytime me or my accountability buddy breaks our fast.
Most Lents, I focus mainly on simply sticking to these goals, telling myself it’s for God. But this year, I’ve been focusing so much more on my spiritual and personal growth and the reason behind these goals. God has revealed a lot to me within these past 40 days, some of which include:
- You have to make time to develop your relationship with God. I won’t lie. I’m just lazy sometimes. It’s so easy to sleep in those extra 20 minutes instead of waking up a bit earlier to pray, and it’s even easier to go to sleep after a long day without night prayer. But when I skip my daily prayer, I find myself actually missing God and excited to reconnect, which was a feeling I didn’t really experience until this Lent.
- Don’t rush through life. Enjoy God’s gifts more. It was painful for me to realize that this whole academic year, I’ve been rushing with nowhere to go. I’ve become so time-anxious that I constantly feel the need to hustle from place to place, task to task. What am I even rushing for anyway? There are way too many gifts God gives us throughout the day, and you really will miss them if you don’t slow down.
- Do things out of love for others, not personal gain. Back in high school, I remember being such a selfless person (or more than I am now at least). I’m trying to get back to that version of myself. I want to remind you to do the same because it’s so easy to do things just for the “thank you” of it. Do acts of kindness out of genuinely wanting something good for the other person.
- Sincerity in prayers goes a long way. We so often have prayers where we just say the words without really putting ourselves in the presence of God. The times I’ve quieted myself, slowed down and reminded myself God is truly in front of me, God moved fast to answer my prayers.
- The Holy Spirit will pull on you. The Holy Spirit does not get enough credit; I could do an entire article exploring more about the Spirit and its many gifts and the strong emotions it leaves people feeling. More recently, I’ve been feeling little impulses to pray extra, do specific acts of kindness, etc – all of which have been hard to ignore and make me happy to follow because I know it’s God pulling on me.
- God wants to be invited into your brokenness. You don’t need to filter yourself around God. He already knows what you’re thinking and feeling anyway. Lamentation is “a prayer expressing sorrow, pain or confusion.” Feel free to tell God all of it; he draws closest to those that are hurting.
- Forgive. This is one of the most difficult lessons I’ve learned thus far. There are people that I haven’t even found the desire to forgive throughout the years, let alone actually forgive. All of a sudden, I’ve been telling myself maybe all of the anger isn’t worth it, for both my sake and theirs. I still haven’t gotten myself to really forgive and forget what we went through, but it’s already a huge step that I’ve considered forgiveness and has softened my anger in some ways.
These are only some of the bigger takeaways I’ve gotten from Lent; there are so many more little moments I’ve felt a change in my relationship with God, myself and others all through the grace this Lenten season has brought me. I’m praying each of you experiences the same! Here’s to a HOPPY Easter and a warm, sunkissed spring filled with good endings and spiritual beginnings :)