Every year around this time, the same question arrives with the confidence of a parishioner who has just discovered a typo in the bulletin:
“So… what are you giving up for Lent?”
It is usually asked with the hopeful tone of someone expecting to hear that I am finally surrendering chocolate, caffeine, social media, or — if they are feeling particularly ambitious — cheese. Preferably all four. Ideally while smiling.
This year, however, I have a small confession to make.
I am not giving up chocolate for Lent.
Nor coffee.
Nor bread.
Nor the occasional episode of television watched while claiming it is “background noise.”
I am also not giving up complaining about the weather, although I reserve the right to feel mildly guilty about that.
This is not because Lent doesn’t matter. Quite the opposite. Lent matters enough that I am increasingly suspicious of how easily I can turn it into a six-week self-improvement challenge with vaguely religious branding. Forty days to a better me — now with ashes.
The problem, I have discovered, is that I am remarkably good at giving things up in ways that do not actually change me. I can abandon chocolate while remaining impatient. I can renounce wine while continuing to nurse resentments. I can avoid Instagram while still scrolling through my own interior catalogue of grievances.
And Lent, inconveniently, is not terribly impressed by symbolic gestures that never reach the heart.
So this year, instead of giving something up, I am paying attention to what I already cling to.
I am noticing how quickly I fill silence.
How often I rush past discomfort.
How easily I explain myself instead of listening.
How attached I am to being efficient, correct, and — when possible — right.
None of these things will fit neatly on a Lenten checklist. You cannot put them in a jar. You cannot count the days. You cannot tell at coffee hour how well you are doing without sounding insufferable.
Which is precisely why they may be worth noticing.
Lent, after all, is not primarily about subtraction. It is about space. It is about making room for truth, repentance, mercy, and grace to do their slow and sometimes awkward work. It is about discovering not just what we can live without, but what we have been living with that quietly shapes us.
I hope to learn what happens when I pause before reacting.
What happens when I sit with hunger that isn’t about food.
What happens when I let prayer be less productive and more honest.
What happens when I trust that God is already at work, even when I am not actively improving myself.
I suspect this will be less tidy than giving up chocolate. It will almost certainly be less impressive. There will be no dramatic reveal on Easter morning that I have conquered anything in particular.
But there may be a gentler miracle: a heart a little less defended, a spirit a little less hurried, and a deeper awareness that God’s grace is not earned by deprivation but received through attention.
If you are giving something up this Lent, God bless you — truly. And if you are not, you are in equally good company. The point is not the thing. The point is the turning.
Lent does not ask us to be heroic.
It asks us to be honest.
And to trust that even here — especially here — God is already present.
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Companion Prayer
Gracious and patient God,
you know how easily we turn holy seasons
into manageable projects
and deep invitations into shallow gestures.
As we enter Lent,
teach us not only what to set aside,
but what to notice.
Show us the habits we cling to,
the fears we avoid,
the loves we have misplaced.
Give us courage to sit with discomfort,
grace to listen more than explain,
and trust to believe that your mercy
is already ahead of us.
Strip away what keeps us from love,
and make room in us
for truth, tenderness, and joy.
We ask this not to become better versions of ourselves,
but more honest ones,
held fast in your unfailing grace.
Amen.