Giving Up Worry For Lent

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body what you will wea. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Matthew 6:25

We are about half-way through the Lenten season with its themes of contemplation and repentance. Both those words are rather theological and remote, but the notions of taking more time to think and to turn in a different direction make them a little more accessible for me.

In the history of the church the faithful have often given up something for Lent. This could mean fasting through the forty days. I've been told that we have Easter eggs because half-starved folk would take hard-boiled eggs with them to break their Lenten fast on Easter morning.

Through the years I have given up television on a challenge from my son, and meat on the prodding of the same son, and sugar. I managed to be steadfast with TV and sugar but I cheated shamelessly when it came to being a carnivore.

One year a young man in his twenties asked for a suggestion as to what he could give up for Lent and I suggested anxiety. He came to see me regularly and he was such a bundle of nerves and anxiousness I was exhausted by the time he left. He was in the choir and drove everyone around the bend with his need to address every tiny detail. While he was highly intelligent he was taking forever to get through his undergraduate degree because he took so long to do each assignment.

To suggest that he not worry may have been unfair, not to mention self-serving. I might as well have encouraged him to give up breathing. And after all, many of us struggle with worry. But we did end up having a good conversation about Christ's presence in the midst of our anxiety and fretting.

There is still half of Lent before us. What are we giving up?

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today. Matthew 6:34