Only for Lent? Why?

After doing my daily morning Bible study with my husband this morning, we discussed the call to what the Lenten season entails. When we talked about sacrifice, reflection, surrendering, repentance and giving, we equated this practice with our everyday mantra. Just as we do not entertain waiting to buy Christmas gifts during the Christmas season, giving thanks and volunteering during Thanksgiving, or waiting for Valentine's Day to buy each other a special gift to show our love for each other, we wondered about the true implication of "only observing" giving up, reflecting or repenting during the 40 days of Lent.

Now, please note that this is not an act of sarcasm or rebellion, but we honestly could not think about what to give up during Lent. Why? Because those things or people who create turmoil, debilitating and toxic habits, or strongholds that keep us from praising God every single day of our lives, are some of the things we give up each day. Does this mean that we do not observe Lent? We do, but we have not waited to only practice surrendering when the season leading up to Easter arrives.

As we pray for guidance and understanding to be better stewards as God put us here to be, we seek a discerning spirit and wisdom to know better, do better and be better. May the season of Lent and any other holiday that calls for reflection, thanksgiving, love and celebration be in your hearts every single day. Do not constrain yourselves to only focusing on the principles of Lent, when we ring in the season on Ash Wednesday, but let those principles penetrate deep within your heart and reflect the "Light" to shine forth every single day, so that others may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven. This is how each person can help to heal the world and make it a better place for all of us, instead of waiting for an assigned time to begin.

Lent: A Time for Reflection, Repentance and Renewal

Today is Ash Wednesday and the first day of the Lenten season. On this day many ceremonies conduct the implication of ashes on the foreheads of members and those attending the ash services. Ashes were used in ancient times to express grief. The gesture was also used to express sorrow for sins and faults. Christians continued the practice of using ashes as an external sign of repentance.

Lent is a 40-day religious observance in the liturgical calendar of many Christian denominations that is a time of spiritual preparation through fasting, praying, repenting, atonement, self-denial and giving. According to the Gospels in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, Jesus spent 40 days before beginning his public ministry. The number 40 has many significant Biblical commemorations (the number of days Moses spent on Mt. Sinai with God, the number of days and nights of the great flood, the number of years the Hebrew people wandered in the desert and several other occasions.)

Many people will personally commemorate Lent by fasting, praying and giving in their spiritually unique way. Pray to God for guidance and focus on Reflection-Repentance-Renewal. 

Celebrating the birthday of Rosa Parks, First Lady of Civil Rights

Image credit: www.signal-watch.com

In celebration of Black History Month, we are paying homage to Civil Rights Activist, Rosa Parks. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) is named "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Her act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott became important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.

From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to John Conyers, an African-American U.S. Representative. She was also active in the Black Power movement and the support of political prisoners in the US.

After retirement, Parks wrote her autobiography and lived a largely private life in Detroit. In her final years, she suffered from dementia. Parks received national recognition, including the NAACP's 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall. Upon her death in 2005, she was the first woman and third non-U.S. government official to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.

"I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free...so other people would be also free." -Rosa Parks