Lent, two weeks in

I realized tonight that I am enjoying this season of Lent, that it is doing things in my heart yet again, that God is working, even where I didn't expect him.

I'm fasting once a week, and I've stopped reading fiction for the course of this season. Both things that I felt God was asking me to do without for a while, in order to more fully listen to his voice. Both food and novels are ways I hide from the world, and often from the more painful realities in my own life, and the painful things God is doing.

Here's the thing, while the fasting isn't that easy, and I can't quite figure out what to do with my time now that I'm not reading two or three novels a week, I feel certain things shifting in me. I feel parts of me coming alive again, in ways they haven't been alive for a quite a while now. I am listening more, instead of filling the space in my head with false realities. I am hearing God, and voices of people I trust. I'm checking out sermons, reading works of theology and biography, and watching things that challenge me. I am feeling inspired to create again, and to write. I haven't particularly wanted to write this last while - not the blogging sort of writing, but essay writing, and working on a book project I started last fall. I want to create beauty again, rather than just enjoy other's creations from a distance.

Today, as I took the train to work, I was writing in the journal that has rapidly become my c-train book (it's smaller than my other journal, more portable, and pretty - orange silk with a cool decoration - a gift from a friend's trip to China last year). As I was writing, I began to reflect on the various things I'd learned in four weeks of fasting on Mondays. I'm not going to share those things here, yet, and maybe never, but as I wrote I came to the conclusion that even if God does not provide the clarity and direction I'm seeking over the course of this fast, I won't regret it. I value the things I am learning about myself, about God, and about my relationship with God.

Sometime in the next few days I'm going to post some "Jesus stories" here. The latest discussion topic on Marty's blog has got me thinking, and I definitely have some stories to tell - some I'll tell there, some I'll tell here.

See you then!