Give It Up For Lent!

When I told Robby that he would really like what I was going to give up for Lent this year, he said, "We're not catholic."  "Silly...I KNOW that, but I have been thinking about the whole Lent thing for a while and I decided that I could just borrow this from my catholic friends this year.  I believe that giving something up during the Lenten season, just prior to Easter, is quite appropriate.

Two of my four children attended catholic school, so I was already very familiar with Ash Wednesday and Lent.  Many of my friends are also catholic and yearly give something up during the Lenten season.  The kids often times are not as serious about giving something up that is important to them, however, my adults friends are.  Using common sense to attempt to understand this, I put two and two together to create my own sarifice this year.

It is my opinion that Lent represents Christ's sacrifice of giving his life up for us.  How could I not consider giving something up that "appears" to be important to me?  So, as I began trying to think of something, Robby's continual bugging me about a habit I have came to mind.  Then, I KNEW what my sacrifice would be; no more texting for me until Easter.

OK, I know that some of you may think that this is not something one would or should give up, but let me explain.  I believe that the sacrifice should be 1.  Personal and 2.  Something that is truly a sacrifice to that individual. And THAT is exactly why "texting" came to my mind when considering something that would be a sacrifice to me.  Unfortunately, I have become a victim of obsessive texting.  My kids text, my friends text, so I got it added to my cell phone plan a few years back and now I am hopelessly hooked on texting.  This habit REALLY irritates Robby for several reasons. First, he cannot stand for people to constantly be checking their phones and sending messages back and forth.  And that leads him to the second reason he hates texting.  He said that people do not communicate verbally any more.  In the past, people would pick up a telephone and talk to someone, but now in this age of electronics, there is no "personal communication" going on between individuals.  Which leads him to question, "Why is it so difficult to just pick up the phone when you want to ask someone something?"  Hmmm...now THAT was food for thought.  I suppose my reason for not doing so (and perhaps many others' reason...) is because it takes more time to call someone, due to the fact that you might then get tied up talking about other stuff and then find that you have wasted a lot of time that you really didn't have to wast in the first place.  I KNOW...that's probably a pretty lame excuse, but as "excuses" go, most are lame any way.  He also makes a case in thinking that perhaps this new craze of texting will probably cause a new medical phenomena; some sort of condition with the fingers from so much overuse.  THEN, people will begin to sue the companies who invented cell phones for this problem...although THEY were the ones who CHOSE to text in the first place.  So...in saying all of this, you NOW know my reason for giving texting up for Lent!

Giving this texting habit up for Lent will definitely be difficult AND a sacrifice for me because I am truly addicted to it...and everyone KNOWS that admitting you have a problem is the beginning of curing it.  I not only know that it is a bad habit, but it also irritates Robby, so I want to give him a little "Lenten Gift" too!  So, I will be CALLING to tell all of my children to CALL ME if they need anything from Ash Wednesday until Easter.  Oh, I realize that they may forget and send me a text occasionally or a picture.  I can't be penalized for receiving them, but I will definitely NOT respond to them.  This may not be a convenient or easy thing for me to do, but isn't that what Lent is all about?  It wasn't easy or convenient for Christ to get on that cross for me either  He made a much larger sacrifice for me...shouldn't I be able to make a smaller one for the one I love?