Throughout my childhood, the season of Lent was about giving up. As an adult, Lent, for me, has been about doing better.
I have a magnet that says Live simply … love deeply … and travel lightly through life.* I have done fairly well with that first suggestion. I have done very well with the second. It is the third suggestion that I have struggled with most of my adult life.
So, for this Lent, I have decided to focus deeply on these words: Travel Light – as a practical principle as well as a spiritual principle.
I will examine my life in PRACTICAL terms and try to make some changes: Is my life cluttered with too much stuff, too much busyness, too many loads? What am I holding on to that, if given away, could make someone else’s life easier? What can I let go to travel more lightly through life.
I will examine my life in SPIRITUAL terms and try to make some changes: I read somewhere that traveling lightly means to live with open hands – hands that are not full with holding on to the past – but are empty, waiting to grasp what God has for me today, now! Am I holding on to feelings, hurts, or grudges that I have kept tightly clutched in a closed fist? What must I do to both open and empty my hands to be free to grasp whatever God has in store for me?
Thomas a Kempis wrote, “They travel lightly whom God’s grace carries.” My prayer this Lent will be for a daily dose of God’s amazing grace!
Offered by Viatorian Associate Marilyn Mulcahy, a wife, mother and pastoral associate at St. Patrick’s Church in Kankakee, IL