Going Cold Turkey for Lent

When I was growing up, my grandmother was one of my best friends.  I spent more time with her than any of my siblings or cousins, and she and I simply enjoyed each others company.  I spent nights at her house, we went on trips to Santa Barbara and San Francisco, we would eat turkey sandwiches together at a picnic table by the ocean at Marineland…  She made the best hot tea ever (which I have NEVER been able to replicate), she loved cats of all kinds, and she didn’t hesitate to forgive me when I accidentally punched her in my sleep one night.  She never drove so we traveled everywhere by foot, bus, train or taxi... she had very little money so nothing about her was terribly fancy... but she was my grandma.  And I loved her.

My grandmother passed away nineteen years ago yesterday, February 12, 1994, but there are things about her presence that remain with me even now.  The scent of her cedar chest brings me back to her house every time I open it.  Her wall hanging of Jesus has always been the first thing hung in every home I have lived in as an adult.  I cannot sing the hymn How Great Thou Art without remembering how pleased she was to hear me play it for her on our church’s grand piano during a Spring Break in college.  And I to this day cannot hear, let alone sing, the hymn Were You There without shedding tears.  She was my grandma, and I loved her.

The most poignant reminder of my grandmother for me, however, is Lent.  My grandma almost always had a box of Junior Mints in her purse and she would eat just one here or there (a skill I have NEVER acquired by the way…), but during Lent that box would always disappear.  Because during Lent my grandmother ate no sweets.  It was something she had done long before I ever came into existence and it was something she did each year as she prepared her heart for Easter by focusing on what Jesus had sacrificed for us on the cross.  Giving up such a simple part of life served as a daily reminder of the season – impressing upon my grandma the importance of the cross and the redemption provided by Christ’s crucifixion upon it.

When I was about eight years old I decided that I wanted to join my grandma in her tradition so I too began giving up sweets for Lent.  Now anyone who has known me more than a day knows that I have a definite sweet tooth so making this particular choice made sense to me.  Sure, giving up sweets is nowhere near giving up my life, but it would definitely be a part of my daily life I would miss and take notice of, thus serving as the perfect reminder of the Lenten season and its focus each day.  And believe it or not I was successful.  Very successful.  No matter how much I crave that bit of sugar on a regular day, during Lent I never seemed to have a problem abstaining – and when I say sweets I mean cookies, candy, chocolate, cake, etc.  The whole nine yards. 

But last year was different.

For the first time since I was a single-digit aged child Lent lost its power for me last year.  There was no sentiment for me.  No daily refocus.  No motivation to make a symbolic sacrifice to refine daily focus on the cross.  Not to say I wasn’t focused, I think that perhaps it is just the opposite, that I was in such a deep, dark place of despair that there was nothing in my sight beyond the cross or my daily hard-won efforts to hang on to it by the skin of my teeth...  There was no refocus, there was only complete annihilation of all else so that everything beyond emotional survival was so far outside my realm of comprehension it didn't even blip on my radar screen.  My thirty-one year old tradition was literally stolen from me by grief and devastation.  But this year… I’m taking it back.

“Today is a GOOD day.”  I just posted these words as my Facebook status and I smiled as I wrote them, because for the first time in a really long time, Today IS a good day.  Not for any particular reason.  Nothing amazing happened today.  I have no great story to tell of Supermom powers or generosity bestowed upon me.  It is just a good day.  For whatever reason, I am feeling secure in myself, my faith is strong, my head is held high, I have a vision of my life before me and I am simply reveling in the glory of my Heavenly Father being as faithful as He promised and bringing me through a very ugly place all the way to the other side.  Now, does that mean tomorrow and the next day and the day after that will be all sunshine and rainbows?  Well, of course not.  But for now, I shall simply enjoy that Today is a GOOD day.  Even without chocolate…

Yep.  See.  You forgot what I was talking about, didn’t you?  I got off on that good day tangent and you completely forgot that I was talking about Lent.  Which begins today.  Ash Wednesday.  And for me, that means today is the first of many days without chocolate.  Without cookies.  Without cake, ice cream, m&ms, donuts… you name the sweet, it is off my list.  But, let’s be honest here, the one that really counts in my world right now is chocolate.  After fifteen months of literally living on chocolate (and yes, it’s true that I was actually losing weight at one time while eating multiple giant Hershey bars in a day…) I truly am going Cold Turkey for Lent.  Can I do it?  Sure I can.  I’ve done it thirty times before and I will do it thirty-one.  (And since I'm posting this I will have to!)

In some ways Satan got the best of me last year.  But in many others he has lost out once again.  All of the garbage, the heartache, the shock and awe that he meant to do me harm, the Lord truly has used for good.  I don’t have nearly all the answers.  And I’m certainly not naïve enough to think that Satan is going to let up on me anytime soon.  But today is a good day.  It is a new beginning.  It is a day focused on choices, on the journey to the cross, on the redemption awaiting each of us there no matter how we come to it – head held high, eyes full of tears, confident and strong or grasping desperately for healing with the very tips of our fingertips.  Wherever we are and however we come, He is waiting.  The cross is there.  It never wavers.  It is ours to focus on.  To claim.  To cling to.  To wrap our arms around and weep on its base if that is where we are in our journey.

Today is the first day of Lent.  And I am going Cold Turkey.  Not because I want others to notice or to set some personal record, but because I am making the choice.  I am choosing to once again honor the season and focus on the journey He has provided.  I don’t know where I’m going.  Heck, most days I can’t even see the path beyond the toes of my shoes, but I’m willing to follow His lead.  And Lent is all about that.

My grandmother was one of my very best friends.  I miss her to this very day and remember so many things we did together.  But in all of my memories and all of my stories of our time together, the one thing that always prevails is her faith.  It never wavered.  It never failed.  She awoke each morning focused on her Lord and led me to Him in so many ways by mere example.  Cold Turkey or not, I desperately want a focus like that.  And I aim to use this season of Lent to focus on my journey, to refocus on the cross and to seek out His glory.   

And I challenge you to do the same.