Alcohol, cookies, and red meat.

And we can’t forget about the swearing.

At various points in my life I’ve given each of them up for the 40 days of Lent. I was brought up believing Lent was about giving up stuff I liked to make the God I was taught to fear happy. Eventually I saw into the significance of what spiritual discipline was all about, but I never saw the correlation between my diet and vocabulary and my spiritual salvation. But that’s just me.

As a spiritual meanderer, I’ve often struggled with some of life’s bigger questions. None bigger than trying to figure out what God wants me to do with me.

With our creation came our purpose, a purpose we all long to fully understand. And for many, we hope our purpose is as significantly glorious as ending hunger or bringing lasting peace to a war-torn world. But inherent within our own creation is our own unquantifiable glorious significance. There are no spare parts in our collective humanity, not in the eyes of the One who created us all.

THE BIG EMBRACE I’ve evolved to a place where I believe God’s vision for me is for me to fully express all I was created to become. To take all the talents, gifts, and abilities I’ve been given and to lovingly share them with the world.

Even if I’m cussing while doing so.

My vision for me is to see myself as God sees me, to fully embrace the divine nature found in all of us. But not to just embrace it, but to stand up and claim it. To own it. To live it. I see this as my part of the deal. God has given me the gift of my life. Is there a better way to respect and honor your Creator’s ultimate gift than to express all you’ve been created to become?

I’d give myself good grades in living up to the vision, but I’ve fallen well short of mastering it. Sometimes life gets in the way of living and an unintended lack of focus allows some of the habits I’ve worked to change to revisit once again.

Lent, for me, has become a time of spiritual realignment. It is a time of deep introspection and honest reflection, of rediscovering the sacred in everything, including myself. At the end of 40 days my hope is to be 40 days closer to becoming all I was created to become.

PEACE & CLARITY Gone are the days of giving up the things I can’t wait to get back come Easter Sunday. Lent has become a time I give up the things which are holding me back, the things that conflict with the vision God and I have of my highest self. Things like doubt, fear, misguided expectations, judgment, stagnation…each a sign of spiritual disconnection standing in the way of me fulfilling my divine promise.

What God wants from me is what He wants from all of us. To fully express all we’ve been created to become and to lovingly share ourselves with the world. In my reflection I have found immeasurable peace as I’ve clarified my understanding of God’s purpose for me. I’m certainly not perfect. But in God’s ever-forgiving, unconditionally-loving world you do get points for trying, for getting back up again and working to honor His ultimate gift.

Here’s to each of us becoming all we were created to become.

It’s a great day to be you!