Letting Something Go To Make Room For Something Better.

This past year, 2020-2021, has felt as if it is the longest season of Lent ever. Over this last year, we have grieved deeply, and we have sacrificed much. Even those who don’t follow a traditional liturgical church calendar often embrace the season of Advent as a celebration. Whereas Lent can feel heavy and sad, often causing us to ignore it. Lent is a season of lament, confession, and sacrifice. So for many of us, the 2020 lenten season has yet to end.

I’ll be honest with you, many years, I have not entered into the season of lent with any serious commitment. It has always been known to me but not often embraced. I have rarely changed my day-to-day rhythms to invite this season in, and most years, I have failed to complete the full season of lent having followed through with “giving-up” something. Lent has felt confining and hard, difficult, even depressing.

Yet, for some reason, in the middle of one of the most challenging seasons ever, I have felt drawn to understand Lent better. Through various stories and podcasts, my perspective on Lent’s season and its purpose in my life has changed.

What I am discovering is that Lent is not just about giving something up, about sacrificing. It is instead about letting something go to make space for something better. When my perspective about Lent began to change, expand, Lent became a season of opportunity. A time for intentional reflection. A time to create space to ask and answer questions such as:

• What is it in my life that is taking up an unhealthy amount of time?
  
• What is consuming space that robs me of investing in what matters most?
  
• What do I need to set aside to allow myself to reset my priorities and focus?

Resetting perspective on Lent does not avoid what we traditionally understand about Lent.

Lent is a season of lament. Yet, rather than seen as a negative, might we embrace the importance of lament? It is good for us to purge the honest feelings of grief, to tell God how we feel, to allow ourselves to acknowledge the hard things.

Lent is also a season of confession, acknowledging where we have taken wrong turns, reflecting on our inner selves, and admitting our weaknesses. But even beyond the confession of our sin and failure, there is space for corporate confession – admitting where we fail collectively as a community, church, and as humans. Confession and naming wrongdoings out loud allow us to move forward more honestly.

Lent is a season of letting go. What better time to reset than in the transition between winter and spring. As we reset our homes and wardrobes, putting way the signs of winter, the heavy blankets, and coats, we can also reset our hearts and minds. Letting go of what weighs us down, what is taking up space in an unhealthy way.

My desire in this Lent season is not to get stuck in grief, in lament, and live there. Instead, it is an opportunity to name the hard, heavy burdens and then lay them down at the feet of my friend Jesus.

My desire is not to carry the guilt over what is confessed but rather to admit where I fall short and ask for forgiveness and strength to do better.

My goal is not to give something up to say I achieved sacrifice for forty days. Instead, I desire to let go of something holding too much space or power in my life, making room for my soul to breathe and allowing space for God’s grace to fill me.

This season of Lent marks one year in which we have been living this Pandemic Life. It is a milestone we would like not to be passing. It isn’t easy to know how to wrap our heads around where we find ourselves and the length of time we’ve lived in this challenging season. For some Lent, this year is something they feel they can not step into, while for others, Lent has become something new.

This year I am approaching Lent with a new perspective. Not as a season to give something up, adding more despair to an already depressing year. Instead, I am looking at it as an opportunity. An opportunity for intentional reflection. A chance to let somethings go to make room for something more, something better.

In this season of Lent, may you find space for your soul to breathe.
As the hard things in your life crack open your heart,
may you allow the relentless grace of God to fill those spaces.
May this season of Lent be less about adding more expectations
to your already overwhelmed life.
Instead, may it be a gift of intentional reflection,
of laying down what is not yours to carry and
finding room for what matters most.