Hello..Just curious of anyone giving something up during Lent season. It's on Wednesday and I am giving up on my scale and cigarettes! Thank you for your input.
I'm planning on giving up dining out...too many calories even with the leanest selections & putting half of the meal in a box. I've been telling myself for quite a while to stop so Lent will be the perfect time to actually DO it.
I haven't given something up in a few years, but I'm trying to be a better Catholic so I will this year. I am addicted to coffee, specifically starbucks, and it makes me broke too.... No coffee for me...It's going to be difficult, but worth it!
Every year, I give up chocolate, cakes and sweets for Lent and have done since I was little. Although i struggle with the temptation of these foods all year round, somehow, i find it easy to say no to them during Lent! hopefully that will help me shift some more weight.....
I'm an atheist, but I grew up Catholic. I always gave up chocolate every year. This other family I knew gave up tv every year, which I thought would be far more challenging.
One of my favorite Episcopal priests (whom I miss -- we moved) taught that just "giving up" something isn't necessarily the way she looked at it. In her view it was important to add a discipline or habit that made you a better person. So, giving up certain things make sense and others don't. This is a teaching I really liked and took to heart.
This year I want to learn how to meditate. For spiritual reasons and as a method of stress reduction.
My priest (Anglican! Is there a connection?) is encouraging us to "take up, not give up". I have three friends who are shut-in and very ill so will be "taking up" phoning them and offering to run errands or do laundry. I'll set up a schedule and do one a day.
Officially - I'm an Anglican priest - I'm encouraging the congregation to take on a mid-week meditation service. I've only been here 6 weeks and the people have had a tough time in recent years; they have a great sense that they should be doing more and more 'stuff', I have a great sense that they need to take a rest.
For myself, I'm aiming to do what I was taught was an Orthodox fast - so no dairy, sugar, yeast or meat/fish Monday to Saturday. Then 'normal' on Sunday, because Christians are not supposed to fast on Sundays, which are always celebration days (that's why Lent is longer than 40 days and 40 nights, it includes 5 Sundays). Apparently (and this was told me by a tutor at college) the Orthodox approach to fasting is that it should be private, and not make anyone else uncomfortable: so if someone who's not fasting offers you a cookie or a meal or whatever, you should take it and not make them wish they hand't offered.
Last time I tried this, I lost 20lbs, and I was already 60lbs into the diet.
I take recipes from one of Carol Vorderman's cookbooks or from Ashy MacBean's vegetarian website.
I was having a hard time with this too, because I only have one crutch left since I've changed the way I eat. I've always 'given something up', but never considered taking something up.
I'm thinking...meditation sounds like a very positive idea.
This is how my church views giving up something for LENT ~
Giving up something for Lent
Q. Do Lutherans have to give up something for Lent as some other denominations require?
A. From the perspective of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, "giving something up for Lent" is entirely a matter of Christian freedom. It would be wrong, from our perspective, for the church to make some sort of "law" requiring its members to "give something up for Lent," since the Scriptures themselves do not require this. If, on the other hand, a Christian wants to give something up for Lent as a way of remembering and personalizing the great sacrifice that Christ made on the cross for our sins, then that Christian is certainly free to do so--as long as he or she does not "judge" or "look down on" other Christians who do not choose to do this.
So doing anything ~ giving up or adding to ~ to remember His sacrifice for us sounds like a good deal to me
i am giving up coffee also.
it is a addiction for me. i love the warmth of the cup, the aroma, the taste....
as i view lent..it is justice to God, justice to self and justice to others.
so i am giving up coffee and it will be a temptation. i will use my belief to be strong in the deprivation.
the justice to self? i am weak. (ha!) so i want to see if i can do it.
justice to others? i am using the money i would spend on coffee on my step daughter during our first ever vacation together.
she is 19 and has never lived with me.
wish me luck.
and i am going to "add in" reaching out to one person a day that i am annoyed by.
Officially - I'm an Anglican priest - I'm encouraging the congregation to take on a mid-week meditation service. I've only been here 6 weeks and the people have had a tough time in recent years; they have a great sense that they should be doing more and more 'stuff', I have a great sense that they need to take a rest.
For myself, I'm aiming to do what I was taught was an Orthodox fast - so no dairy, sugar, yeast or meat/fish Monday to Saturday. Then 'normal' on Sunday, because Christians are not supposed to fast on Sundays, which are always celebration days (that's why Lent is longer than 40 days and 40 nights, it includes 5 Sundays). Apparently (and this was told me by a tutor at college) the Orthodox approach to fasting is that it should be private, and not make anyone else uncomfortable: so if someone who's not fasting offers you a cookie or a meal or whatever, you should take it and not make them wish they hand't offered.
Last time I tried this, I lost 20lbs, and I was already 60lbs into the diet.
I take recipes from one of Carol Vorderman's cookbooks or from Ashy MacBean's vegetarian website.
Im just curious, can you direct me to where it is written that Christians aren't supposed to Fast on Sundays? The two most memorable Fast in the bible are Daniel's and Jesus's. I don't remember then taking Sunday's off but I could be wrong. I always understood the Fasting in private meant to make a show of yourself. The bible said for the Fasters to keep themselves presentable unlike the religious leaders that just Fasted for show and made a spectacle of themselves. I would think that by accepting food offered to me during a Fast could be Satan's temptation so a polite "No thank you" is what should be said instead of accepting it. So I am just wondering if there is somewhere, either in the Bible or elsewhere I can get a better understanding of this.
Lent...What will you give up?
