Lent Challenge
Coming from a pretty strong Roman Catholic background, Lent was always serious business.
Each year, my 4 siblings and I each chose an item to give up. This was extremely frustrating during the years I had braces, as my parents wouldn’t let me “give up” something I couldn’t eat, which ruled out the typical chocolate, gum, and pop options. It also really hurt as my birthday was generally during lent, which meant if I gave up sweets, the birthday cake was gone. Some of the things we would sacrifice for 40 days included cheese, popcorn, late curfew, more-than-10-minute phone calls, hot showers, etc.
After having my two little ones, lent really wasn’t practiced, as we just had too much on the go. Sometimes I feel like we are in a permanent state of lent, and will be for the next 18 years (and then some…). However, this year, Peyton is 3. She understands that the Easter Bunny is coming, with treats. So why can’t she learn the concept of Lent now? I wanted to come up with something fun, but something she will learn from at the same time.
So, I came up with this idea for Lent. Instead of temporarily giving something up, we will donate something away, which will benefit someone else, every day. Every day, Peyton, Noel, and I will each pick an item to give away to someone, and each week, we will fill a new bag. By the end of Lent, we will have 5 full bags to donate to a not-for-profit of our choosing, and the 6th full bag of food for the Food Bank. For organizational purposes, I plan to pick a different area each week to thin out:
Week One: Play Room
Week Two: The Kitchen
Week Three: Living Rooms
Week Four: Garage
Week Five: Our Bedrooms
Week Six: Basement/Stockpile/Pantry
I would love for you to join me in this challenge. I will be posting an update each week with a daily photo of what I am putting into my bag. Please feel free to post your pull on Facebook, or on this thread! I am looking forward to a clean house, and a large donation 🙂
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