Welcome To Lent!

"Welcome to Lent!" is all the text said after I sent text after text to my husband, in the hopes of proving to him that this day was going to be horrible and that learning to relax is just not an option when life doesn't pay attention to what you want. This is the start of my Ash Wednesday! On Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) I, of course, waited until the umpteenth hour to figure out what I was going to do for Lent. I was stressing myself out about it, in my usual fashion, and my husband offered up this tidbit in his aggravatingly, easy, breezy tone, "Maybe you should give up worrying". Huh?! Does he not know me? My rebuttal was quickly on my lips, because it is what I always said when he mentions this, "But, HOW do you do that?" I need a game plan, a path to follow, in order to achieve anything. Learning to relax and "let go and let God"is all Greek to me, what does that even look like? Is there a checklist for that? I went through my day, where at every turn I felt like I could hear God saying, "Trust Me, I have something better in store for you". It surely didn't feel like I would be granted this resplendent day, where my checklist was done and I could sit back and look at my list, feeling happy that I had gotten my act together and was able to accomplish something. But, it's not about me and what I can do on my own, is it? It's the middle of my day and I'm still to see any fruit or God's hand blessing anything in my day and most likely I won't have a beatific vision or wonderful moment of clarity and understanding. But what I will have is the peace of mind that I am allowing my Heavenly Father to work through me in whatever way He deems fit. The knowledge that He works even in the quiet times, in the inactive times, in the hard times, He is always working, is good enough for me. I don't have to kill myself to try and achieve a perfect grade in life by doing what I think will get me that A+, all I have to do is listen and heed the call of my Creator. To be silent when he wants silence, to be still when he needs me to be still, to be what He needs me to be in order to appease His checklist, not mine. Do I want to pull my hair out and scream? Yes. Do I want to crawl into bed and call the time of death on this day? Yes. But, then what would all that really accomplish? At least that's what I keep repeating to myself. God is not a liar, so I will persevere in the endless task of learning to trust the one person who will never let me down. Funny how we can put our trust in so many things and people, but we can't seem to give that to He who will never disappoint. So, I sit here, breathing in and out, lamaze- style, willing myself to trust, to relax, failing but offering it up because after all it is Lent.