When Lent doesn't make sense
At some point in your life - you've been there. Lent came early. The nights are still long, it's cold and gray, and it wasn't so long ago that Jesus was a little baby in the manger. "I'm not ready for Lent" - the sacrifice, the difficult scripture, the fasting - it just seems so grim. This has happened to me before because when I've had particularly difficult times getting the choir ready for Christmas and I'm just over the hump of learning all that music. Or work is hard and I drag myself home at night only to be too exasted to cook dinner. Lately, I've haven't found much peace in the prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I haven't found much peace period. It sounds a bit dark, but I feel as though God is taking me through a difficult time and I need to learn to be somewhat unhappy, uncomfortable, unsure and empty.
In that respect, I wasn't quite ready for Lent but was thrust directly into it. Still, I've been given the grace of being able to see the light, some light, at the end of the tunnel. So I can't characterize what I'm feeling as depression. It's more a realization that I have so far to go and that much of what I've been doing in my life is not journeying directly toward God but rather wandering. And this year, even though the journey is difficult, the path is true.
