"From Dust You Have Come", OR "Sacrificing"

Anyone else look forward to Lent every year?

Anyone? Anyone? Beuler?

Lent really is one of my favorite times of the year. And I think it all goes back to one particular Lent, five years ago. Until that year, I hadn't given much though to it; Lent had always seemed like something Catholics practiced, and I was a proud Protestant. I understood the forty days before Easter were special, because it represented Jesus' return to Jerusalem before the crucifixion, but it hadn't ever occurred to me to "give up" anything for Lent, like I'd heard some people do.

But the previous year had been a difficult one. My marriage had ended, and I'd had to learn to adjust to life on my own over nine very painful, confusing months. I'd gone through up and down periods of growing closer to God and then sliding away. All and all, my life had been a hectic roller coaster, and I decided I'd had enough. I wanted to grow closer to God, and Lent was the perfect season to do it.

So I gave up sugar. Not just sweets or desserts, but all refined sugar. No coffee creamer. No sugar cereals. No sugar in my pasta sauce or bread (it was really difficult to find those). No sucrose, fructose, or dextrose. No sugar substitutes, either (bye bye, diet soda). I had to consciously re-arrange my eating habits, shopping habits, and going-out habits to reflect what I had fasted to God over this time.

And I loved it.

I was thrilled with the difficulty of discipline. The extra time in the supermarket and looking at a restaurant menu reminded me of all that God had brought me through in the last year, and how far I'd come by His grace since the previous May. My fasting sugar wasn't simply done to improve my health, or so I could say to people, 'No thanks, I'm fasting sugar for Lent'; every time I craved sugar, or had to watch what I bought, I was reminded of God's faithfulness in my life.

Ever since that year, when I truly felt the Holy Spirit moving in me during the season, I have loved Lent. Even more than Christmas.

Tonight is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and I was excited. The Ash Wednesday service is one of my favorite services of the year. I always felt moved by the Holy Spirit during the service, the calling for us to be holy, as Christ was holy.

My evenings are much more eventful now than they were during that year-and-change I was living on my own. I live much further from my church, and Hillary and I have to wrangle three little girls together to make it on time. Having to leave so early and get home so late makes it difficult, too, as we've actually got to start our bedtime rituals before we leave for church, just so we can get the kids in bed at a reasonable hour when we get home.

Maybe it was the devil holding us back. Maybe it was just poor planning on our parts. Maybe it was a little of both. But, no matter the cause, Hillary and I found ourselves pulling out of the house at 6:45, for a church service that was half an hour away that started at 7:00. There was no way we were going to make it.

So we turned around before we left our subdivision and returned home. I didn't make it to my beloved Ash Wednesday service.

I was so bummed that, when we got home, I put in my headphones and listened to some Ash Wednesday sermons on YouTube while I fixed dinner for me and Hillary. And, like God so often does when I'm in the wrong, He took the time I was chopping sweet potatoes into fries to set me straight.

If there was ever a single meaning for Ash Wednesday, it has long been lost to antiquity. Today, Ash Wednesday has many meanings. One, to remind us that we have come from the dust, and to the dust we will one day return (Gen. 3:19).  Dust and ash, by definition, serves no purpose; it's waste material, only good for throwing out or cleaning up. How much like dust are we to God! God has no necessity of us. He would still be as holy and righteous, ruling over His world, had He never brought man into existence. But that itself is a testimony of God's love: even though we are worth nothing, of no value, God still loves us and makes plans for our lives and desires nothing but the best for us.

Ash Wednesday is also a reminder of the Old Testament tradition of mourning, where the mourner would put ash on their heads as a way to humiliate themselves before God. Humiliate, in this sense, coming from its original root word, 'humility': to take a posture of humility before God in mourning over our own sin that has separated us from Him. During the forty days of Lent, we are to mourn for our sin, understand that it had separated us from God, and spend the season in repentance while we strive to imitate Christ's holiness, because it's God's will that we be conformed into the likeness of His Son. (Romans 8:29).

Lent is a time to prepare our hearts for the upcoming death of our Savior, just as he spent his final forty days in Jerusalem preparing for his own death. It's a time of sacrifice. It's a time of repentance and mourning. And most of all, it's a time to struggle for holiness, a struggle that may have left our sights in the previous year.

And if God was calling me to sacrifice for Lent, maybe the first thing He was calling me to sacrifice was my beloved Ash Wednesday service for the sanity of my family. Because if the service itself had become more important to me than what the service represented - a time of sacrifice and holiness to honor God - then, like many other things I'd given up to God in the past, I needed to let it go.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think there's anything wrong with being bummed because I missed church. There are definitely worse things to be sad about! But, if time simply wasn't going to permit it this year, I needed to pull myself out of my funk and find where God could use me at home. So I pulled out my earbuds, finished making dinner for me and Hillary, and started Lent by helping get my kids ready for bed with my wife.

I may not have gotten the cross drawn on my forehead with ashes, but it was still a reminder just what the season of Lent is supposed to mean. It's a season of setting myself aside to listen to the Holy Spirit's calling of my life. It's intentional denial of something I normally love, to remove one of the many sources of white noise in my life that prevent me from hearing God's calling. And it's a reminder that I'm a sinful man, that I mess up and need a Savior to remind me of my need for repentance.

I'm going to giving up sweets this year, with two exceptions: a little creamer in my coffee every morning (but no more than one cup), and whatever sugar substitute that's in Shakeology (my breakfast every day). I'm also giving up swearing; even though I don't do it much, it far too often makes its way into my private conversations. And I'm giving up useless internet time, because that bad habit often destroys my evenings and keeps me from making the most of the time God's given me.

Sweets.
Swearing.
And scrolling.

Those are my sacrifices for Lent. It's my prayer that God will use these fasts to help me grow closer to Him, that every time each of these fasts affects my life I'm reminded that I'm nothing but a pile of useless dust, beloved by God for nothing that I could offer Him, and that it was my sin that nailed Jesus to the cross, where He went willingly for me.

Happy Lent, everyone.

"Running on Empty" OR "My Easy Week"

It's the last week before spring break. Also known as the Last Great Battle of the school year.

Sure, there will be troubles to come. After all, KPREP is a mere 24 days away (we're keeping count), and there will be days upon days of dreary review material, during which the kids will hate me and I'll hate Common Core and we'll all pretty much loathe life. But this week is the Last Great Battle, because it is the last week before an extended break. And what a break it is; the first break since returning from Christmas vacation, snow days notwithstanding. Long-anticipated through cold, dark, dreary days.

And this week finds most of us, teachers, running on empty.

This is the week when we try to quickly assess over content we know our students will forget over the long week's vacation. The last chance to get another project finished, to try some new activity to keep our students occupied and happy and engaged for just five more days.

So we scour the internet for ideas. We beg, borrow, and steal from colleagues. We comb the resource closest. Anything and everything is thrown at the wall, to see what sticks.

And as the days progress, students get wilder and wilder and wilder.

As of now, there are three days left in the week. Three days I am not looking forward to. But three days I've got to endure.

Which sort of what makes this feel like the longest week of the year.

I'm right on the cusp of race season; my favorite races of the year are all mere weeks away. But nothing this week but anticipation.

Normally I can occupy myself with the NCAA men's basketball championship. But, this year, the University of Kentucky lost in the second round to Indiana, a team with more sleeper potential than anyone living in the Bluegrass state gave them credit for. With them gone, I've lost all interest in college basketball. Which leaves baseball as the only viable sport to become invested in. But even on its best days, baseball can't hold my attention the way football and basketball can. Since the baseball regular season has yet to start, I've got nothing to distract me from the thickness of this miserable week.

But then I remember what this week is really supposed to represent. Yes, it's a week when I'm still responsible to teach my students the content they need... but, more importantly, it's Holy Week.

Holy Week is the week before Jesus' crucifixion, when He returned to Jerusalem even though he knew what awaited him there. On Sunday, He rode triumphantly into the city, as onlookers proclaimed, "Make way for the Christ! Make way for the Christ! Blessed is he, who comes in the name of the Lord!"

Jesus knew word would spread. He knew the teacher of the law and Roman guards alike would surround him before the end of the week. He knew of his arrest, his farce of a trial, his conviction. He knew he'd endure hours and hours of torture before being subjected to the most painful death imaginable. But still, he rode into Jerusalem for the Passover festivities with his head held high. He knew who'd send him, and what he'd come to do. And he thought we were worth it.

How whiney must my complaints sound to him?

I gave up social media for Lent, and it's been difficult. This last week of media abstinence has me nearly foaming at the mouth to open Facebook, just for the heck of it. It's almost as though giving it up for Lent has actually increased my dependence on in instead of breaking me of the habit cold-turkey.

On this day, nearly two thousand years ago, my Lord was giving one of his last addresses to his closest followers. I can't wait four more days to take a personality quiz?

A woman anointed Jesus's feet with perfume and her tears, overcome by the weight of her sin and guilt in the presence of her Savior. And I'm complaining that I have to teach three more days before I get a week off?

My Friday is going to consist of whatever activity I can throw together to keep my kids occupied until the final bell rings. Jesus' Friday consisted of him crying at a lonely rock, pleading with his Father one last time for some way, any other way, to save all of humanity than what he was about to go through.

On Saturday, my family and I are flying to Disney World, the self-proclaimed 'Happiest place on earth'. Jesus would get no sleep on Friday night, because of his trial that takes place in the dead of night. He endures stones, whips, thorns, and finally the cross.

When I lay it out like that, I know I've got nothing to complain about.

But, darn it. I'm a weak human. I know what Jesus went through for me, and the mark it should make on my life and my thankfulness for my job, and the ever-warming weather, and a week's break. But those happy thoughts feel awfully useless when I'm staring down a room full of thirty-three 7th graders who're losing their minds.

 The three days left this week are going to be the longest of the whole year. And the struggle is going to be remembering that I shouldn't complain about ANYTHING that happens during them, because no matter how many last-minute grades I have to put in, disciplinary actions I have to take, or meetings I have to attend... the end of my Passover week is going to be a heck of a lot easier than Jesus' was.

A while ago I wrote a short story in Cut and Dry, my creative blog, from the point of view of the Apostle Peter, set on Good Friday. If you have a moment, check out "Upon This Rock".