What Am I Doing for Lent?!!?

Lent
Day 53- Ash Wednesday preparations!

Ash Wednesday is HERE!

So, I guess this means that I finally have to nail down what I will be doing this Lent, right? Nothing like the nth hour, eh? 🙂

After much consideration and after looking at different links and suggestions, I have come up with the things that I am going to give up/take on during these 40 days in which I am attempting to adequately prepare myself for the celebration of Easter and grow in conformity to Christ.

Posting them up here is an attempt to secure the encouragement and accountablility of *you*: the 1 or 2 people who may read my blog. 🙂

In no particular order:

  • Read only spiritual/classic literature  (Good thing I finished reading Twilight last night!  And this will be a little difficult, because I *just* bought 2 YA novels and am about 1/4 of the way through one of them.)
  • Exercise at least 15 minutes, 3 days a week
  • Spend at least 15 minutes each day decluttering my house, and have at least one “package” of donations make it to a charity before Easter
  • Lectio Divina, daily
  • Liturgy of the Hours, daily
  • Examination of Conscience, daily
  • Adoration, weekly
  • Confession, weekly
  • Prayer journal, daily
  • 15 minutes of silence/listening to God, daily
  • Listen to only classical music/spiritual podcasts
  • Post something spiritual/share the faith on the blog at least once a week
  • Leave an encouraging or positive comment on someone else’s blog post, daily (instead of my usual habit of reading them and not commenting)
  • Give up fast food
  • Study the life of a different saint per week
  • Get caught up on my to-do list by Easter (this list is *almost* 2 years behind, and is only going to grow with all these items which I am about to add to it!)

That’s it!  That’s my Lent!  I do these things, not so that I “look good,” but in an honest attempt to provide more structure to my life and grow in holiness and self-mastery.

I’m interested to hear what your plans are for Lent, too!  I think that, as a Body of Christ, it helps so much to know that others have your back.  🙂

God Bless!

Prayer for Forgiveness

Prayer/Prayer Requests
Jesus Over the Earth

My Savior, by Your painful death,
You purchased by unworthy soul,
Deliver me from all my sins,
Teach me kindness and self-control.

Fill me with love beyond compare,
The kind of love You bore for me,
That all I do and all I say
May reflect Your sovereignty.

Be with me, everyday, my Lord,
Protect me from each harmful way,
Touch my body, mind, and spirit,
And never let me slip away.

Amen!

Riddle Me This

Bible Study

Okay, so I’m reading through the Old Testament and am in the middle of 1 Kings.

Here’s the issue:

15:1-2 — Here we meet Abijam, he rules Judah for 3 years and his mother’s name is Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

15:9-10 — Here we meet Abijam’s son (according to verse 8), Asa. His mother’s name is Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

Wait. What? The same woman?

Is there something Oedipal going on here?

The Embarrassing Truth

Exciting Adventures of the Everyday

Here is the embarrassing truth:

Master Bedroom: Original State

My master bedroom is a disaster.

My myopathy means that I get tired super quick. Okay, not “tired”, but exhausted to the point that I can only lay supine on some flat surface. I also get short of breath a lot. And have cardiac arrhythmias. And build up lactic acid like a fiend.

So simple household chores are really difficult for me to stay on top of. Especially considering that I still work full-time and have other obligations that take me outside of the house. The general rule is that I don’t get home until about 9:30 pm or so. And then, I’m lucky if I have enough energy left to make dinner.

Forget about doing the dishes.

And laundry? It’s exhausting just to bring the hamper to the laundry room and then move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. Usually the dryer is running while I sleep. Then, in the morning, I grab the clothes onto the bed and find whatever I need to wear for work that day. I don’t have time then to put them away or fold them. When I get home, I’m too tired to deal with them. So, I shove them to one side of the bed and sleep on the other side. Eventually, they fall off onto the far side of the bed and lay there in a heap of clean laundry.

I also don’t have a good organization system for things. And I’m terrible with flat surfaces. It’s just so easy to plop something down on the nearest available surface and forget about it. Things pile up with alarming frequency. I need real help in this area.

I recently took a Project Management course where we had to come up with a project charter and plan. I did mine on a bedroom make-over.

See, for about a year now, I have wanted to replace my dressers (which I don’t really use for clothes) with a shelving system from IKEA that I can use to organize books and pictures and things.

And I also wanted to repaint my bedroom a more exciting color. Like aquamarine. It’ll be like a beach theme.

Eventually, I also want to buy a chair for the one corner so I can read by the window, replace the light with a light/ceiling fan combo, and finish upgrading the outlet to 3-prong receptacles.

My goal is to get all of this done by this fall. (Hopefully, much sooner, but I’m giving myself time.)

I’ll be creating a new tag for this project, so that you can follow along as I go (and find the thread of post among all the other stuff I put up here).

Thanks for your support! 🙂

Waking Up

Exciting Adventures of the Everyday, Health & Medicine
Sick Jennie

Wake up. Arrhythmia. Hard to breathe.

Exhausted.

Check phone which is lying next to me. Read text; pray for friend.

Thirsty, but exhausted. Don’t want to get out of bed, but there’s no one else to grab me something to drink.

Lay there for a few minutes… Finally, get out of bed and get some juice. Starting to think in longer phrases.

Then.

Dizziness. Nausea.

Drink 3 ounces. Go back to bed. Flop down.

Get back up.

After all, this is my life. Usually, I have to go in to work or have something else planned for my day. This morning, I don’t have anything pressing. So, I’ll blog about it. Not to get sympathy, but because this is my experience right now. I don’t feel sorry for myself; it’s true that I have difficult times, but everyone has difficulties, right? It’s important to remember other people, particularly when you are not doing well yourself.

This is usually the time when I pray for others the most. Frequently, I’ll ask my priest for names of people who are in particular need of prayer, whom I’ve never met and probably never will. They say that offering your suffering for others is redemptive for them in some way, and I cling to that. Also, just the fact of focusing on someone else, instead of myself, distracts me from what I’m going through and helps my to learn to love others better.

Later today, I’m going to surprise a friend with a gift. Because she’s not feeling well. 🙂 It involves a bit of shopping, so hopefully I’ll feel just a little bit better and be able to drag myself out of the house.

Until then, do you think it’s okay to wish for minions who can run errands for you? 🙂

[My mom says this photo is the only one she’s ever seen of me in which I don’t look good. And that’s why she kept it. Thanks, Mom!]

Novena to the Thirteen Blessed Souls

Prayer/Prayer Requests

A friend asked me to pray this novena for her for the next 13 days. The 13 blessed souls are Jesus and the 12 apostles (I’m assuming Matthew and not Judas for the 12th apostle).

If you’d also like to pray this novena with me, here it is!

(Please Note – The repeat of the first line is not a mistake it is supposed to be read twice.)

Oh my thirteen Blessed souls so wise and understanding, I ask you for the Love of God that my request be answered. Oh my thirteen Blessed souls so wise and understanding, I ask you for the Love of God that my request be answered. Of you I ask for the sake of the blood that Jesus shed that my request be answered.

My Lord Jesus Christ that your protection wrap me with your arms. Guard me with your eyes.

O God of kindness you have been my defender in life and death. I ask that you free me from the difficulties that torment me. My thirteen blessed souls so wise and understanding having received the grace I seek from you [state request] I will be devoted to you.

Say 13 Our Fathers and 13 Hail Marys for 13 consecutive days and offer a Mass of Thanksgiving.

The Love Dare: Day 3

The Love Dare

I didn’t skip this dare, and I didn’t forget about it. Today’s dare involves trying to be unselfish, and I didn’t feel that I really had a good chance to be unselfish yesterday and decided to extend the dare for several more days.

Part of being unselfish for me is to think more of the stresses and demands placed on others and trying to relieve these, instead of thinking of the stresses and demands that others are placing on me.

While I have tried to adjust my thinking and my heart, I was given the opportunity to concretely do something for others on January 11th. A friend had told me of an awful fire, where 20 units burned. The tenants lost everything. While the management got them placed into vacant units in the complex, they didn’t have any beds or blankets and were sleeping on the floor. They didn’t have basic essentials, like food, dish soap or shampoo.

I ended up going shopping for them and picking up a few things, which was joy enough for me. I didn’t need any recognition for it, nor was I looking for an atta-boy. What ended up happening was that God put someone into my life that I really didn’t have a relationship with before.

This girl has an incredibly beautiful heart. The way she loves is inspiring. She loves deeply: her family, her co-workers, her neighbors, complete strangers. And she gives of herself selflessly. What a gift, that I should have this person enter my life! 🙂

What has been even better, in the subsequent days, is that she has spurred me on to greater awareness of others and acts of unselfishness. Which was kind of the point of Day 3, right? 🙂

Sometimes It’s the Small Things

Neat Things I Didn't Author
Agony in the Garden

I can study the Catechism or Scripture, but sometimes it’s just a phrase or sentence in random places that I reflect upon the most. A friend regularly sends out different reflections throughout the week and, to be honest, I don’t read through them all. Today, however, I did read (skim) through it and this stood out for me:

God the Son, in your eyes, I am like a poor, helpless sheep whom you gently pick up and carry when I’m worn out from my sins…. I am completely unworthy of your love, but so grateful to find rest and a true home in you. Lord, grant me a generous heart.

Yes. Please.

Words

Jennspeak

Have you ever stopped to reflect on how you’ve learned words? Certainly, a lot of our knowledge is from our parents and from school, but what about those words that we learned on our own, by reading in context and things like this?

Do we *really* know what they mean? Precisely?

Maybe not. I know there are quite a few words that I only know the meaning of in a general sense. There are probably a lot of words that I’ve only read and never heard, so I’m not certain of the correct way to pronounce them.

Like “banal”. I always thought the emphasis was on the first syllable, which had a long A sound. But, I have heard many people on the radio pronounce it with a short A, and emphasis on the second syllable. And what exactly does it mean?

Merriam-Webster says it means, “lacking originality, freshness,” where I always thought it meant something like, “boring” or “meaningless”.

Maybe I should work harder to look up these words I don’t really know. Instead of tending to skip past them and remaining ignorant. 🙂

Here’s another one: Ineffable = “incapable of being expressed in words; unspeakable; not to be uttered”

Perhaps some day, I’ll master the English language…. Some day a long time from now…. 🙂

Sacred Space

Prayer/Prayer Requests

A friend sent me a link to Sacred Space, a prayer site run by Irish Jesuits. On a whim during my lunch today, I popped on and starting praying with their prayers, reflections, and Scripture for today.

The Scripture was the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. After reading the passage, they ask you to reflect upon how this Scripture made you feel.

In the beginning, they describe the people as being like sheep without a shepherd. This made me think of myself as a sheep, and how I would feel if I were without my shepherd. And I became sad. I need my shepherds. I would be lost without them.

Then, they spoke of how all the sheep were gathered up and held within the communion symbolized by the loaves and fishes, and I saw in this the analogy of the Mass. It made me reflect upon the profound connection that there is between our priests and the Mass. And upon how much I need both.

I need this sacramental life like I need air to breathe. And I can’t imagine my life now without it.

Thanks be to God.