4th Full Week of Lent (2015): Internal Conversion Doesn’t Mean Isolation

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The days of Lent are marching by quickly now with Holy Week coming into sight.  This past weekend had me quite busy at our parish.  Friday night I was bringing food and helping oversee the Soup and Stations sponsored by our youth group. The particular version of the Stations of the Cross we used again this year was well received and many of the people I talked with afterwards about it were surprised that the reflections had been written by a group of teens (just not ours!) Saturday morning was our ladies group’s bi-annual Seder meal. During our meeting, a friend from the MOMS group had her daughter baptized and as we were leaving a young couple arrived for their wedding. Sunday morning found my husband and I up early preparing items to share for the church potluck celebration of St. Patrick’s Day as well as a bake sale fundraiser for a mom in advanced stages of cancer and in dire need of financial assistance. Then I rounded out the weekend by helping at the high school youth group session where we watched an interesting video recording of a talk on chastity from NCYC.

In all the busyness, I had the thought that maybe I needed to have more quiet time… time with my internal thoughts.  With family time (such as movie night on Saturday), I felt like I hadn’t a moment to myself. But, then it struck me that we are meant to live in community. Looking back at the Creation story, we can see that God did not intend for us to live in isolation.

 

So while we need that quiet time in prayer and reflection, we also need to be in community. Our life in community can help with bringing about our own internal conversion. This is what hit me during the youth group time. Sitting in a room full of teens, I was struck by how the couple giving that talk had things to share which could apply towards me as well.  The closing message given in that talk is that if you do nothing else in life, be authentic.  That is something I strive to be…an authentic individual whose private persona is very much the same as my public image.  I don’t take that to mean I have to lay it all out there in public to be authentic, but that all decisions I make are reflective of my authentic self.

That is my goal now…living an authentic life. To achieve that means internal conversion as I strive to be the wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend people might ‘expect’.  There’s also the painful change of resetting priorities so that I can better fulfill those roles (including decluttering and cleaning my house, I fear!) But,  most importantly, I want to be a woman of God with my actions and words reflecting His desires for me.

 

Looking Back at the Past Week for 40 Days of Seeking Him

Just like I did with the link up this past Advent, I am going to share the most visited post (or posts if there is a tie for click throughs) as well as a personal favorite or two from the previous week’s link up. 

The most visited post this week was Stations of the Cross with Children by Nicole at Children of the Church.  She shared photos of their family’s visit to the outdoor stations at their parish Church St Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church. I highly recommend taking children to your own parish for making the stations either as a family or in community if possible. They need to see that the Church is a community and not just a place you go on Sunday.

 

With so many great submissions, it can be difficult to pick a personal favorite.  If you aren’t clicking through to read all of the posts, you really are missing out!  I have TWO posts to showcase this week.

Virginia at Virginia Lieto shared a thought provoking post, Humility: How Utterly Misunderstood!, which lays out what true humility is compared to the false humility some of us attempt to project.  What jumped out at me was about how God will chip away at our pride to make us humble.  As much as I’d love to claim there is no pride in me, I have come to realize that there are seasons of my life when I have let pride take hold and I have fought God on that part of my refinement process. 

The other post which I want to showcase is  A God Who Is Rich in Mercy (Fourth Week of Lent) | The Bread for Mar 15 – Mar 21 on Peanut Butter and Grace.  This is a wonderful walk through THIS week of the liturgical year with not only the Sunday Scripture readings from the Lectionary, but ideas for activities you can do with the kids along with information on a few Saints with Feast Days this week. I really like the suggestion to add some music to the Easter baskets for your kids.  What a wonderful blessing for them that lasts a LOT longer than any chocolate Easter bunny or other edible treats.

 

This year, I am joining Trish @ A House Upon the Rock in co-hosting the 40 Days of Seeking Him meme.  The linky will be up each week so you can add in posts daily, weekly, or whenever you are able.  The posts can be about anything related to Lent and preparing for Easter ~ crafts, food, devotions, music or reflections are all welcomed. I hope that my readers will join us on the journey through Lent as we seek to grow closer to Christ.  Christian bloggers are welcome to join us in the weekly link up with posts that they are writing to showcase activities or reflections taken during this Lenten journey.

We are expanding the platform for this meme to include a 40 Days of Seeking Him Pinterest board for submitted posts and a Facebook group.  I hope that you’ll check out the Pinterest board and join us on Facebook, too, as we seek to grow closer to Christ.

Is Lent going ‘as planned’ for you or has life thrown you a curve ball?

What are some ways you are growing closer to God?