I know that Harry Potter is the subject of a lot of my blogs. Well, he's been a pretty significant part of my life. In fact...I'm currently watching HP1.
But for real, there are sometimes Trolls in the dungeon of myself. Does that make sense?
This Lent I couldn't really decided what to give up and what to do. Normally I do something like give up Soda or Sweets or French Fries (Seriously, I did that in middle school). I just wanted to do something different this year.
On the day before Ash Wednesday I wrote in a blog entry "There is snow and a little grass poking through, but there really isn't much life. Recently I've been feeling that way." I then proceeded to see a post on my Aunt's FB profile for a website called Busted Halo. On said website, there is a current dealio called "Fast-Pray-Give." Each day there is something to fast from, something to pray about and...something to give. Somedays it has been food or a meal or even facebook (which was difficult!) Somedays, however it has been personality traits such as pride, jealously, even feeling sorry for oneself.
Now, my mother seemed to think that some of these things were just an easy way out. But, have you ever tried to be not jealous for a whole day? It's a lot more difficult than one may think. I believe I was at work that day. Everytime I started to (or had) a jealous thought, I said a little prayer and asked for forgiveness and strength. I thought that it would get easier throughout the day, but no. I struggled until the end of the day when I went to bed.
As we're approaching the end of Lent, I've been thinking about how I was feeling at the beginning of Lent. During that particular blog, I also mentionned how I wanted to declutter my life. Physically, I was good at this. I went through most of the stuff that I had left over from college, etc and I gave/threw a lot away. I've slowly done different parts of my room over the last 40 days. Emotionally, this was not so easy, but I think I'm getting there. I really have been thinking in a more simple fashion, trying not to overthink things and in a sense, chill out. I'm a huge type A personality and this is not easy for me. So I guess that goal is getting met.
I liked FPG because not only are there little things to do each day but there also quotes each day. These are sometimes little gems of wisdom and sometimes thought provoking. I often found myself reading them several times over and thinking about what it means. It was just a few minutes I set aside each day, throughout the day.*
The real question that remains is what did I get out of all of this? Well I gave up time for God each day. That was nice, to just spend some one-on-one with the Big Guy. He's pretty neat and always understanding. I also got to think about things in my life that I may not have thought about before. And I got to learn new things and quotes each day. And the few times that I forgot to look, I was able to make up for it the next day, as the plan was "foolproof," in the words of the website. So I really think that this was a good thing for me.
Do I think I'll do this again next year? Maybe, maybe not. I may just fall back on my oldies but goodies. We'll see. I found some Trolls in my dungeon though, and I'm working on Wingardium Leviosa-ing them out of my life. I do, however have Easter to look forward to. Easter is a joyous time, and I'm excited to celebrate this year, and am going to try to go forward with the Easter season in a truly prayful manner.
*As a side note, check out FPG. It really is interesting and has some great quotes.
