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Lent - A Time For Sacrifice

As we all know, and hopefully believe, roughly 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ died on the cross. He was crucified, ridiculed, persecuted, and publicly humiliated. He could have stopped all of this, but he didn't. He didn't do this for one reason - He died for us. We are all sinners and before Jesus died, our sins were not forgiven. He sacrificed His own life for us, that is how much He loves us. He gave His life for us.

It's such a glorious thing, and it shows how weak we are as people. I cannot even give up 10 minutes of my morning for breakfast, I have to stay in bed an extra 10 minutes. I am very bad at sacrificing things for myself, let alone to give things up (my life!) for others. This all just recently settled in my mind how amazing and wonderful that is. I'm not going to even get into what we owe for that, I'm just going to discuss what I think we should do during Lent.

Lent is a time to prepare for Easter - when Jesus rose from the dead. Yes, I still call myself Catholic although I don't really abide by their rules or believe half of what they say. But one thing I believe the Catholic church taught me that I will always follow, is giving things up for Lent. This is our way of sacrificing a little something for Jesus. I mean come on, the man gave us His life, this is the least we can do to show our appreciation.

A lot of people say "I'll give up TV for Lent, except for The Simpsons". Or some people say "I'll go to the gym every day." These are not acceptable things to do! (they are acceptable things to do, but they don't justify the point of giving something up for Lent) The point of Lent isn't to better yourself as a person (by going to the gym) - the point is to sacrifice something that you like to do! If you give up TV "except for The Simpsons", then you aren't really giving up something you like. If you go to the gym every day - how is that a sacrifice? That's something that is going to make you a better person! Don't say "I'll not lie during Lent". You're not supposed to anyways! Don't say "I won't get drunk during Lent" - you're not supposed to do that anyways! (again, not trying to point fingers, I am guilty of everything I speak of so far)

This year for Lent, I'm giving up several things. Some of these things are quite basic and simple, but are things I like. I am not going to disclose everything I'm giving up, but I'll tell you a few. I'm not going to eat chips & salsa. If you know me at all, you'd realize that I eat chips and salsa about every day of the week. I'm addicted and I love to eat it! Is there anything wrong with eating chips and salsa? No, but I'm going to sacrifice that. I realize that sounds stupid, but I don't care.

I'm not going to wear my contacts during Lent (except when I go snowboarding for the simple fact that glasses + goggles just won't work, not because I want to wear them). I enjoy wearing my contacts because my glasses are uncomfortable, I also think I look better without wearing my glasses, again - a personal choice and preference. So I am sacrificing something I love to wear. Again - that may sound stupid, but it's still a sacrifice.

Hopefully you can at least see the point of what I'm talking about here. You could look at it two different ways. On the one hand, you could say that humans are weak and we have trouble even making the smallest sacrifices. But on the other hand, you could say that Jesus is almighty and we should be in awe that He willingly sacrificed His entire life for us!! I think it's a combination of both hands. Either way, the only reason I wrote this was to hopefully persuade at least 1 person that we need to give up something for a short span of time (a mere 40 days!) to show God how much we love him. Please at least give it some thought.