From Dust to Dawn

It sounds weird to say "Welcome to Lent," but it is here, and I wish that it will be a blessed, prayerful time to all. I want to try something new for Lent that should help with both being prayerful this Lenten season and, perhaps, blogging a little bit more--and actually about something. On Sunday, I picked up a Lenten prayer booklet that is actually quite lovely. It's called "Lent: A Layaway Plan for Easter" by Jerry Welte (http://www.allsaintspress.com/Lent-A-Layaway-Plan-for-Easter-p51.html), and it consists of short reflections and activities to think about for each day of Lent. It's meant for family reflection time; however, I don't quite have my own family yet (just about 4 MONTHS now!), I'll share my reflections here. I won't write out Welte's reflection--aside from being time-consuming, it's probably copyrighted--but the Scripture verse, the activity, my own reflection on that activity, and the daily prayer.

Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation. -- 2 Corinthians 6:2

Activity: Gather and write personal losses on slips of paper. Then burn the papers and pray for new life from the ashes.

It's funny how when you're in a bad mood you can only think of all the "horrible" things that have ever happened to you, but whenever I need to think on-the-spot of my losses, I always come up blank. It's human nature, I suppose, to want to focus on the blessings rather than the pain. I like to think I'm old, but I'm reminded nearly daily by my Ph.D. cohort of how young I really am, and for that reason I fortunately have not had to endure as many losses yet as many of my older friends. But I have experienced loss. When I was 10, I lost my beloved grandmother to cancer and diabetes, and missed saying goodbye in-person by only a few hours. As a kid, I remember all the times my dad was laid-off; some times were worse than others, but it always made us aware how tenuous our financial status was. People don't believe me now, but I was made fun of a lot in high school, and while I was fortunately never seriously bullied, that constitutes a loss in and of itself. I could go on, but what this leads up to is that all this was necessary for me to become the person I am today, and if anything in my past had gone differently who knows what would have happened. So I will try to thank God everyday for the burdens and the blessings, because it is only through darkness that we can tell what sunshine is.

Prayer: Loving God, you make all things new. May this Lenten season bring new life from the ashes of our losses and failures.

~The Original Fong~
**You wish you could pull off being me**

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