Category: Lent
Our Runaway Hearts
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 I didn’t recognize my own symptoms. After three weeks of summer travel and a jam-packed schedule I finally had a morning home ...
Entering into Lent 2018
Today, known as Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter. I was raised in a home that had no religious underpinnings and in our own church tradition we have not routinely embraced observance of the Church calendar. For some of us, this may be ...
Lent 2018 Begins February 14th. Sign up now to receive a weekly devotional!
“You're not the same as you were before," said the Mad Hatter. You were much more... muchier... you've lost your muchness.” “My muchness?” Alice asked. “In there,” he said, pointing to her heart. “Something is missing.” According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, muchness means "the quality or state of being in great quantity, extent, or degree." The Mad ...
Weekly Lent Devotional
The season of Lent, the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter is just around the corner! This year Lent begins on Wednesday, February 14. So for the next 40 days (starting February 14th) I will be posting a weekly blog post centering around the season of Lent. Throughout the Scriptures ...
Keeping Lent In Its Place
I have a confession. Given this is the season of Lent with its emphasis on intentional self examination and repentance, I suspect this is a good thing. Not being raised or familiar with the seasons of the Church growing up, and having been saved in the protestant tradition, the liturgical invitation into Lent was, like ...
The Crisis of Prayer
My post for today comes out of my Lenten devotional by Henri Nouwen. It’s such a good insight into prayer when it seems it’s such a struggle. At times I find myself pushing and shoving in prayer feeling like all the work lies with me. In those times, prayer feels more like a burden and ...
Lent: A Season of Grace
*This is the forty day journey of Lent. It is marked in days but lived in grace. For much of the Christian community, the forty days begins with Ash Wednesday (though the Eastern Orthodox church counts forty days back from Palm Sunday) and continues through the Holy Week stories of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion. ...
Practicing Confession
We are a little over half way through the Lenten season. This is the time of year designated by the church calendar set aside as a time of searching our hearts (Psalm 139) in preparation for celebrating Easter. It’s about not only discovering and confronting the sin that has subtly crept in to our lives ...
A Prayer for Lent – A Time of Returning to God
A Prayer for Lent "How often have I lived through these weeks without paying much attention to penance, fasting, and prayer? How often have I missed the spiritual fruits of the season without even being aware of it? But how can I ever really celebrate Easter without observing Lent? How can I rejoice fully in ...
A Prayer For Lent
"How often have I lived through these weeks without paying much attention to fasting and prayer? How often have I missed the spiritual fruits of the season without even being aware of it? But how can I ever really celebrate Easter without observing Lent? How can I rejoice fully in your Resurrection when I have ...
Gail Johnsen 