Dear Friends, 

 We are now knee-deep in Lent, and I’m sure you’ve rediscovered that it’s taxing. Living in discipline and obedience for 40 days is hard work.  Soon, we’ll find ourselves completely immersed in the betrayal, crucifixion and death of our beloved Savior.  And we’ll be begging for the glorious warmth of Easter to rescue us from our spiritual winter. 

 We put ourselves through the Lenten spring training for that very reason: So we can truly feel the extravagant grace of Easter anew. And year after year, we make the tough journey through Lent, preparing our hearts with discipline, humility and solemnity. 

 A friend of mine used to claim that God’s greatest gift to us is sin.  His point was that without sin we wouldn’t need to be forgiven and we wouldn’t know how good God is.  To put it a more Reformed way, our greatest gift from God is free will, because it is through the choice to turn to God or away from God that we see the difference.  By free will we can choose to follow the path to the cross or go our own way.

 So does that mean that we need not worry about what we do or whether we sin? As the Apostle Paul would say, “By no means!” And, in fact, when we choose to limit ourselves and hand over our love of sinning, we prepare ourselves to know the grace that abounds.

 During Lent, we have voluntarily chosen to prepare our hearts and our minds for the Lord, who we trust is coming.  We don’t have to pretend that we don’t know how the story ends, though.  Unlike the original disciples and friends, we can be confident that Jesus has risen and we will not live in the shadow of the cross forever.    

 Have peace this Lenten season,

Catherine