Lenten Adventure Week 1
Friday, February 24, 2012 at 5:40AM Three days in and so far I’ve had it pretty easy. Days one and two turned out to be “give up” days - I had to give up close parking spaces and my electric blanket.
I hadn’t really thought through the whole parking space thing. I just pictured myself walking through parking lots and getting exercise.
I kind of forgot about the grocery store.
Wednesday, I had to run in for a few things that turned into four bags of groceries and a jug of milk. I don’t know what scenario the developers of this store were planning for, but there are a lot of parking spaces so my car was really far away.
I didn’t want to push a cart all the way out there and back and there weren’t enough bags to justify using the drive up service so I grabbed the whole load and started walking. As soon as I started to mentally complain, an article I read a while back about women in Africa who walk miles every day to get water for their families came to mind. If I thought a few groceries were heavy,how would ten gallons of water feel? Over hot and dusty dirt paths? For miles?
I made my whiny brain shut right up.
I didn’t even have to crawl into my cold bed last night to know that that wasn’t anything to complain about. There are plenty of families in the area who are cold every single night. They struggle to pay utility bills with thermostats set much lower than mine. Electric blankets would be a luxury.
So I told my brain to shut up on that one before it even got started.
Because it’s really pretty ridiculous what I consider to be “sacrifices”. I think it’s going to take all 29 of them to add up to what compares to an average day for many women of the world.
As Reagan pointedly said when I was laughing about the parking lot, “Mom, you’ve got first world problems.”
Today’s slip is an “add”. It’s daily random acts of kindness. I have an idea for today, but being randomly kind on a daily basis is going to take some creativity and planning. Lucky for me give up googling is not on my list so I found this great site among many others that has good ideas.
Lenten Adventure
Reader Comments (12)
I went over to that link and realized I hadn't done any of those things for a long time. Then it hit me: kindness is a fruit of the Spirit. I have a lot of growing to do!
I love going on this growing adventure with you.
good for you! And you're right, it's easy to forget how good we have it in life. Thanks for the reminder.
A few free hours of baby sitting huh? Let me know the day that you are struggling for acts of kindness : )
I always like letting someone in front of me at the grocery store. Expecially when they have a carton of eggs and I have 3 weeks worth of food. : ) And I've always wanted to do that "pay for the next person in the drive thru line" thing too.
mj - ouch! That hadn't occurred to me but you're right.
Tabitha - I do have it good and I need to remember to be more thankful for that.
KB - just let me know. You have girls. I can handle girls. :)
What I love about projects like the one you are doing is they really do change our thinking. It makes me realize how lazy I am when it comes to committing anything of value to Christ--I flip-flop, justify and whine.
Thanks, Mindee. Your project isn't just impacting you.
but it's great that through this, you get to realize how great your life is. be thankful you have first world problems, but make sure you don't get down on yourself for having them.
does that make sense?
I love your attitude!! I need an adjustment often. :)
Crys - Wouldn't it be awesome if I could get the change in thinking to STICK?
sarah - Oh, I'm not down on myself for having first world problem, I just want to keep them in perspective. But thanks for the pep talk. :)
LJW - don't we all!
I really, really like your lent ideas! I told my family about it and we want to try something similar. We didn't want to wait a whole year, but felt it would take to long to implement it for "Lent" so we decided to put all the month's left in this year in a bowl and draw one... We got July... It seems perfect since my daughter's wedding will be over and she will be moved out... Fresh starts and all... Now to see if we can get the whole youth group on board!
I love that video so much, I think I've seen it like 100 times. And it's SO true - almost everything that annoys me, I'm now like, hahaha, that's just stupid to find annoying. And I'm so proud of you for sticking with it!
OH MY GOSH ARE YOU SERIOUS?! DID I JUST GET TO COMMENT WITHOUT HAVING TO DO THAT HORRIBLE CAPTCHA?!?! This is officially a marvelous day.
(And sorry for the cap lock, it just felt necessary.)
(Talk about first world problems, huh?)
(But, seriously, I feel like I've just added a huge chunk of time to my life.)