Okay...this is my first Lenten post ever! (I think)... Anyway, I can't say too much about it that you probably don't know... So please forgive me if you don't understand a word I'm saying! :-P
I'm pretty sure everyone gave up/putting up with something/doing something extra for this Lent. What was yours? Mine, among other things were: No naps (I never get to sleep anyway, with three monkeys bouncing in the house), no sweets (a really common resolution), no video games (a new one my siblings and I decided to do this year) and extra homework :-P. Of course, extra homework is probably/currently the hardest. Anyway....there could be a lot of things that I could offer up or give up something else and add that to my list. I could say that I'm giving up TV. But I never and hardly ever watch TV. Um...okay, let's think of a more simpler one...I know! I could say that I'm giving up coffee! But I don't drink coffee. Maybe my mom would let me have a sip, but that is rare. Now that wouldn't be very nice! Or I could say that I'm putting up with the heat down here in Hawaii(if there ever was right now...it's cold! :-P). But I'm used to it, so it wouldn't really matter for me. But we might want to be careful with resolutions like that. (eg: Giving up pastries for breakfast because you hardly eat them anyway) That probably wouldn't exactly be a resolution.
Updated: Yikes, I totally forgot to write about my whole point of this subject!! Anyway, what I'm really saying is, that the number of resolutions we make is not the point of the whole Lenten Resolution thing. Like if someone ever made up some resolution that's too easy for him or her to make, just to get competitive with someone else's number of resolutions, or even boast about it, then their first resolution may very well be humility! (ha, try boasting about that :-P ) Making Lenten Resolutions isn't a game to see who can give up the most and tell the whole world about how hard you've been working. What are resolutinos for, then? Well...I'll have you think about it.
And, we might want to be careful with other people's resolutions. (It's not ours, so don't keep telling them that they're breaking their Lenten resolutions!) Did you ever hear that story about a kid who kept on saying that he was giving up chocolate for Lent, but in the end he couldn't stop eating it, and his sister kept on scolding him for breaking it? It's something like that.
Of course, Lent is only forty days. But during the season, it may seem more than just that. Well, there's forty days of Easter! You can try, after both seasons are over, think over which season was easier/seemed shorter to you. Probably Easter :-P. But think of it! Weren't you soooo happy when Easter finally came around? Did you feel like you were set free or something? :-P Lent would be over, and you probably would drop your Lenten resolutions, but it's not exactly over yet.
I can relate it to the hard time I had in the marathon (yes, I felt very tired too). Around the first few miles I felt okay. But when we got halfway I was aching all over, from head to toe. I really really wanted to start begging Sr. Jerome (who was really kind and amazingly patient enough to drag and take care of two kids who has never walked 8+ miles in their lives as fast as she was walking) to at least sslllowww down or something! But what she said at the start of the marathon was painfully true. Stick to a certain pace; don't slow down or stop, or it would really get painful and much harder for you. I didn't really get it at first, but it's actually true. If we ever slow down (like break a resolution so many times) during Lent it's gonna be harder and harder to get back on track.
And after we were finished, we were soooo happy! Of course, in my mind (and my brother's), we imagined that after all those miles we conquered, we would finally be able to rest. Unfortunately for us, it was not. We had to walk around the whole Stadium to get our bus back to Downtown (unless we wanted to walk back...Nooo!!! :-P). One of the priests noticed my brother's panting and sighing, and said that after 8 miles walk, this was nothing. My brother, of course, did not seem happier.
What does this have to do with Lent? Well, after Lent we can't just simply 'drop' what we've learned and come to understand. We continue the path with more love, fervor and zeal in our hearts, and even more better.
Kind of like in our video games when we defeat a hard boss, get a lot lot of cool stuff, especially experience, and are so excited to continue to use all what we got for further use. And then, of course, after that happens, we don't want the story to end, and keep on going. It's like that.
Sorry all the topics are totally mixed up... :-P Hope that made sense to some reader...
