This is so on point to a conversation my husband and I have been having. We think to be worthy is to be without sin, but sometimes the hyper focus on sinning is a sin in and of itself because it’s so true that when we learn to love ourselves (our full selves, not our perfect selves), we can love others more deeply, and vice versa, which is the whole point. I really appreciate this perspective.
This was so beautiful, Sarah! I have been struggling a great deal with thinking about Lent, fighting to fast and pray because I started to think it was what I had to do to prove my love for God. But your words opened my eyes to the reality of the season; that it is not about my love for Him, but about His love for me, and my resting in that.
I especially loved this part of the essay: "The disciplines of Lent - prayer, devotion, fasting, stillness - aren’t meant as a heightened performance, an extra extravagance of discipline to prove we’re really Christians. Rather, they are meant to create a quiet space in which we listen afresh for love, ‘accept God’s will’ as we come and remember that we are forgiven."
Thank you so much! I did not know how I much I needed to hear this until I started reading. These are words that I will come back to ten million times as we journey towards Easter.
I loved this, Sarah: "Lent (not to mention the Gospel) is precisely for the lost and discouraged, the brokenhearted and disappointed who know they have nothing left to give. Lent is for the hurried and distracted, the lonely." How gracious our God is! "He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14 HCSB)--even during Lent! You are so right: These 40 days before Easter are not a time to earn God's love or even prove our love. In her book, Circle of the Seasons, Kimberlee Conway Ireton points out that any kind of fast is meant to intentionally create space in our lives for our relationship with God (p. 75). You are doing that with your listening, praying, journaling, and reading. There will be plenty of time for crack-of-dawn quiet times when the nest is empty!
There is a kind of beauty that only breaks through the cracks—like moonlight in a prison cell, or grace in the middle of Lent. This post reminds us that the real fast God desires is not the denial of chocolate or sleep or even sin, but the surrender of the scaffolding—the piety we perform to avoid being known, the discipline we use to disguise our need.
In Desert and Fire, I return again and again to this truth you’ve illuminated with such tenderness: that Christ does not wait for us at the summit of discipline, but kneels in the dust where we’ve collapsed beneath it. That Lent is not a ladder but a letting go. That repentance is not an achievement, but an ache that Love rushes to fill.
And here, in the tears of a sinful woman, in the silence of a weary heart, we see again the scandal of incarnational mysticism—God not above us, demanding ascent, but God within us, receiving our ruin and turning it into communion. This is not the Lent of Pharisees. This is the Lent of the brokenhearted. And, thanks be to God, it is enough.
Beautiful. Thank you, Sarah.
"Rather, they are meant to create a quiet space in which we listen afresh for love, ‘accept God’s will’ as we come and remember that we are forgiven."
Yes! I love this. Thank you, Sarah.
This is so on point to a conversation my husband and I have been having. We think to be worthy is to be without sin, but sometimes the hyper focus on sinning is a sin in and of itself because it’s so true that when we learn to love ourselves (our full selves, not our perfect selves), we can love others more deeply, and vice versa, which is the whole point. I really appreciate this perspective.
I'd love to know which novels drip with grace for you! Would you be willing to share a list? I'd love to read one during this time.
Yes, please share!
William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace always comes to mind for me.
Yes, Please.
Have you read Mrs. Clarkson's book, Book Girl?
It's got heaps of lists of great books she loved, and it itself is a wonderful book! I would 100% recommend!
This was so beautiful, Sarah! I have been struggling a great deal with thinking about Lent, fighting to fast and pray because I started to think it was what I had to do to prove my love for God. But your words opened my eyes to the reality of the season; that it is not about my love for Him, but about His love for me, and my resting in that.
I especially loved this part of the essay: "The disciplines of Lent - prayer, devotion, fasting, stillness - aren’t meant as a heightened performance, an extra extravagance of discipline to prove we’re really Christians. Rather, they are meant to create a quiet space in which we listen afresh for love, ‘accept God’s will’ as we come and remember that we are forgiven."
Thank you so much! I did not know how I much I needed to hear this until I started reading. These are words that I will come back to ten million times as we journey towards Easter.
Thank you for sharing such life giving thoughts. I needed them.
I loved this, Sarah: "Lent (not to mention the Gospel) is precisely for the lost and discouraged, the brokenhearted and disappointed who know they have nothing left to give. Lent is for the hurried and distracted, the lonely." How gracious our God is! "He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14 HCSB)--even during Lent! You are so right: These 40 days before Easter are not a time to earn God's love or even prove our love. In her book, Circle of the Seasons, Kimberlee Conway Ireton points out that any kind of fast is meant to intentionally create space in our lives for our relationship with God (p. 75). You are doing that with your listening, praying, journaling, and reading. There will be plenty of time for crack-of-dawn quiet times when the nest is empty!
This goes straight to my heart.
Beautifully and thoughtfully put.
There is a kind of beauty that only breaks through the cracks—like moonlight in a prison cell, or grace in the middle of Lent. This post reminds us that the real fast God desires is not the denial of chocolate or sleep or even sin, but the surrender of the scaffolding—the piety we perform to avoid being known, the discipline we use to disguise our need.
In Desert and Fire, I return again and again to this truth you’ve illuminated with such tenderness: that Christ does not wait for us at the summit of discipline, but kneels in the dust where we’ve collapsed beneath it. That Lent is not a ladder but a letting go. That repentance is not an achievement, but an ache that Love rushes to fill.
And here, in the tears of a sinful woman, in the silence of a weary heart, we see again the scandal of incarnational mysticism—God not above us, demanding ascent, but God within us, receiving our ruin and turning it into communion. This is not the Lent of Pharisees. This is the Lent of the brokenhearted. And, thanks be to God, it is enough.