Last week I picked my three grandkids up from school, and over Graeder’s ice cream cones I mentioned to them that Lent was coming up soon. Oh, my goodness, the protests that spilled forth! There was a loud “Oh no!” and an “I don’t like Lent” and a few other expressions of dread and impending doom. I was quite surprised by their reactions and their perception of Lent as being only a time of intense denial and suffering. NO (fill in the blank) for six weeks. It’s the end of the world as they know it! And it made me wonder how many of us feel the same way….

I love these little teaching moments with my grandkids that God often lobs over the net into my court. How lucky I am to be able to share my faith with them. I hope they took a few of my thoughts to heart.

So, what if we think of Lent, my dear ones, as a get-to season instead of a have-to season? As followers of Christ we get to have a relationship with our God and we get to spend this time deepening our friendship with God. And during Lent we get to do this as a community, as the Body of Christ. We all say this is a very good idea and let’s do it together. We all know that any friendship or relationship takes time and effort to make it better. So Lent is a time when we all get to focus our love and attention on our relationship with Jesus. That’s the whole reason we take this journey through Lent, to grow closer to Christ. That is the goal.

I am a big fan of the Olympic games, and just coming off of two weeks of watching these amazing athletes, it is easy for me to draw so many parallels between their training and the spiritual life. Serious athletes sacrifice and train in ways that will build muscle mass, create endurance, and develop flexibility. We are running a spiritual race and it is important that we spiritually train for this race. The sacrifices we make as we train will yield fruit.

So first, do you have a game plan for your Lenten training? Think about it now and come up with some ideas.

Our Lenten tradition calls us to practice three spiritual disciplines; prayer, fasting, and alms giving. So I’m asking myself these three questions:

What is one change I can make in my prayer life to spend more time with Jesus?

What can I get out of my life to make more room for Jesus?

How can I model Christ and be a blessing others?

So here we go, standing this week at the starting gate of our lenten journey. How blessed are we that we get to do this and we get to do it together in community. Join Fully Alive Yoga each week as we devote our practice to this race toward the outstretched arms of the Beloved!

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LENTEN YOGA SERIES
begins Monday February 28 , 2022

Lenten yoga is a unique way to prepare for Holy Week
and the celebration of Easter Sunday. Each week we will focus our practice on a spiritual discipline or theme that draws us further along on the Lenten journey.
If it’s been awhile since you have joined us please consider making this embodied prayer a part your lenten practice.
Do you have a friend who has been thinking about trying Fully Alive Yoga? Lent might be a great time
to bring them along with you.

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