These Are My JOTtings, Part #2

Lessons from Lent

The past six weeks have been a time of growth and endurance.

Giving up the daily creation of blog entries for this personal profile blog has required the discipline of just saying, "No," to the impulse of trying to maintain a perfect record of blog entries, since I began on November 5th, 2016 as I recall. Before Lent, 2019 I had created blogs most days for over nearly two and half years, missing less than a dozen days, purely by oversight.

Giving up this prideful status has reminded me that The Lord's Name is worthy of Glory, not my own. Now, I will try to maintain my blog posts as often as possible for the purpose of doing Him honor.

Giving up coffee and drinking only tea has been a matter of self-discipline. At least I was permitted to avoid the "no caffeine headache," that I've been forced to endure at other points in my life, but I has required me to drink probably twice to three times as much tea in order to maintain the caffeine levels. Refusing myself coffee has made for adjustments in my social events. Going to coffee shops with friends is a major respite in my life. During Lent I have learned to drink tea lattes and chai tea when I'm in a coffee shop, which has felt a little bit outside of the Comfort Zone.

What is the first lesson, that I've learned from Lent, 2019? Jesus gave up His life for the humans of Humanity, many of whom still to this day do not stop to appreciate just what His sacrifice meant. I, on the other hand, had the much simpler task of giving up two simple things for the benefit of my spirit's growth, while it is fully appreciated by Jesus, the One, Who made me to grow to be like Him.

I'll close for today because I feel like I'm starting to ramble, but I hope to add more thoughts about Lent in the up-coming days. This has truly been a learning experience for me, since I'm not catholic, nor am I part of the truly reformed denominations, like Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran. My background is Baptist. My forebears often lived out in the wilderness, even in caves to stay away from the debate between the aforementioned parties. This means, that even this Baptist has been challenged to learn from the disciplines, that give groups, like the Methodists their very name.

Finally, for now, I started back writing a poem each day at the first of April to coincide with NaPoWriMo, aka National Poetry Writing Month. If you would like to catch up with what I have been doing, during the April section of Lent, then you can find that here. https://jesusislord.video.blog (It's a Word Press blog. The web address looks a little funny, since it includes the word, "video" of which I have none, but this was the only format currently that was free. Previously, the free ones had the suffix, ".wordpress.com.")

Anyhow, that's for what's it's worth.

by Jay O'Toole
on April 22nd, 2019