Lent - Or 40 Days of Faith

Last year Lent snuck up on me. Before I knew it, Lent was upon us and I hadn't thought even for a moment about it. I was pretty irritated about that, you can read all of my ranting about last years Lent here.

But this year, I'm in a very different place. I'm very much ready to engage in something special if it means that in the process I will be engaging with Jesus. My walk with Jesus has been changing dramatically over the last couple of months (in a very good way) and I'll write more about that later once I manage to get my brain wrapped around it a bit more. For now, I want to talk about this year's Lenten season and 40 Days of Faith.

So as Cam and I started considering how we would participate this year, we heard a short talk at church about a couple different categories of participation. In my words, the first is abstention and the other is engagement. You can either chose to abstain from something that is "important" to you or something that occupies a lot of your time or thought and replace that thing with prayer or meditation with Jesus. Or, you can chose to add something to your routine that would also enhance your walk with Jesus - add a devotional, read a particular book, a Bible study or engage in a specifically planned prayer time regularly.

We're chosing to do both. Cam isn't comfortable with me writing about how we have chosen to observe this year through both abstaining (fasting) and engaging (worship). So, we'll just kick off Lent tomorrow and see what God has in store.

Playdate Fun

I love Adi's weekly play dates with Caedon. They've literally grown up together and he's the closest thing she has to a brother. Caed is always so sweet and excited to come over and play. The instant we walk in the door I hear, "Stacey, I'm hungry" which is most likely code for, "Stacey, I'm not really hungry but I know you have different snacks at your house than I have at mine and I like to try whatever you have here" and I love the predictability of that. Since Adi doesn't have any siblings, Cam and I are her play mates. This is great fun most of the time, but it is so rewarding to see her interact with children her own age.After several months of attending preschool we opted to take Adi out and keep her home. There were many reasons, financial, separation issues Adi was having and problems with one of the other students that had Adi pretty upset about going to school were just some. I know she'll have to deal with that stuff at some point in her life, but she's three years old and I don't believe it's beneficial for her to have to cope with it right now. So she's been home with Cam for the last several weeks and the number of tantrums have reduced pretty dramatically. She's happier and sweeter than she's been in a while. I know we made the right choice.

A Fun Weekend

My new hairdresser, Miss Adilyn Rose, gave me this rockin' new do. Colorful, funky, sparkly, wild and creative. Just the way I like it.

Cameron, the romantic husband with excellent taste in flowers adorned us once again with gorgeous roses (twice in one month! I'm a lucky lady.) Adi can't resist inhaling the amazing aroma which is her namesake. Only after checking for fairies, of course!

On Saturday we went ice skating at Coral Ridge Mall. Here we are lacing up.

Here you witness the face of desperation. Can you see the pain in my expression? Cam only made it around twice before he had to quit. Something about those skates squished our feet and the pain was horrible! What I won't endure for my daughter! She was really bummed when we had to leave but my feet felt like they were in mini coffins and I was on the brink of freaking out if I didn't get those skates off!

Here is a pic of Adi and her friend Avra. Ad is being silly and sticking her tongue out which makes her mouth look like it takes up half her face!

We then enjoyed a wonderful dinner with our friends, the Lauer's. It was fun and refreshing to talk about the environmental ministry we are working on together and brainstorming ways that we can expand the current ministry and turn it into active service. We have a lot of ideas and can't wait to see what develops.