Can I Give Up Laundry For Lent? The Journey to Easter

I wish I could give up Laundry for Lent. It would be so nice for 40 days not to do a stitch of laundry. No washing, drying, folding, putting away or hunting down missing socks. The free time I would gain from giving up this little task (read nemesis) would be tremendous. It would amount to hours each week.

Who knows what I could do with that time. I could learn a new language, sew new drapes for my den and find time to go to the gym every day. The time I would have for my quiet time with God, contemplative Bible study lessons, and cooking gourmet meals for my family would add to the peace and tranquility in our home.

Then reality hits me. No laundry! We'd all be walking around in dirty socks, mismatched tops and bottoms, and sleep would be replaced with worry over the creepy crawlies in my sheets.

Instead of giving something up this Lenten Season, I'm going to do something. I'm going to be more deliberate about bedtime with my kids. I'm going to try to turn off everything going on from 8 to 9 and just focus my attention on the kids and their "stuff". I'm sure there will be days that I won't be able to do this; we'll be at an event, a game or have plans in the evening that will mean we rush home and go right to bed or I'll be at a meeting myself. However, it will be my intention during Lent to spend more time helping them wind down from their day, talk about big and little things, and read more together.

The fact that C is giving up his DS and PlayStation for Lent and my husband is giving up all forms of Solitaire on the computer should help make evenings more " family time" oriented.

Lent is a hard concept to grasp for kids. Our church celebrates the season with special services; Ash Wednesday, each Wednesday of Lent, and Holy Week, but we haven't really talked about the hows and whys. I think that this season my family is going to try to do dig in a little deeper. It's so much easier to do this with Advent as we prepare for Christmas and count down the days. However, it much more important to do this with Easter. Without Easter, Christmas would be just another little boy's birthday. Easter makes the reason for the season that much more meaningful.

I've found a few websites on Lent that my family and I are going to use to travel this road to Easter. http://www.currclick.com/advanced_search_result.php?tag=266

http://prayerfoundation.org/lent_40_days_of_prayer_&_fasting.html

https://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=3137

Join me on this Journey of Lent; A journey that leads to an empty cross, an empty grave and a life that never ends. What a journey.

If you have any good resources on Lent let me know.