Coffee made the cut this Lent

Usually during Lent I feel moved to give up things like chocolate and coffee -- though the year I gave up coffee I think I managed to alienate everyone around me, including God! If any one tells you coffee is not a major drug, DO NOT believe them! Going off of it made me so anxious that 40 days felt like 40 years. Yes, 40 years of wandering around in my detox desert of despair, searching for another substance to replace my morning jolt. And being so very non-British, tea just didn't do it for me  (my apologies to two of my best friends for whom tea is mother's milk).  I am not sure if it was these two gals or not who told me that tea actually has more more caffeine than coffee. I will leave it up to the caffeine "gods" to decide that one!

This year, I am not moved to give up substances as much as my emotional drug of choice -- anxiety. Yes, the Lord has spoken: I am to give up anxiety and to take up His peace. Now that may seem like a fairly straightforward Lenten practice to folks who manage to have more serenity in their lives. But for someone like me, a worry queen, that is a tall order.

What has fueled my usual high level of anxiety and caused it to blow of the charts has been my attempts to heal from the loss of a young foster daughter last November. A year and a half into this sojourn, and I am still struggling. So part of my Lenten devotions this year include re-reading sections of A Grace Disguised. It chronicles the grief journey of Jerry Sittser who lost a mother, a wife and a young daugther in a car accident a couple of decades ago.

In Chapter Nine, Why NOT Me, he writes: "I would prefer to take my chances living in a universe in which I get what I do not desesrve. ... That means I will suffer loss, as I already have, but it also means I will receive mercy. Life will end up being far worse then it would have otherwise been; it will also end up beig far better. I will have to endure the bad I do not deserve; I will also get the good I do not deserve. I dread experiencing undeserved pain, but it is worth it to me if I can also experience undeserved grace."

I love his courageous willingness to take the good and the bad. I am not sure I am in his league yet, but perhaps after 40 days of giving up my anxiety and receving God's peace, I may balance out a midgen.
 But one thing I do know for sure: I am not giving up coffee so I can take up tea. I will leave that to my very English buddies.

dealing with loss during lent

Lent 2011 is upon us, and I am grieving the loss of a foster child that I had hoped to adopt a year and a half ago. It's funny, but the phrase “ashes to ashes” pretty much says it all about my mood these days. But like a friend said, “At least now you are in a season that synchronizes with your mood!” My friend always did have a way of nailing and naming things with her words.