Tis the Season

the Lenten season that is. Like most Baptists I don't know all of the details of the season but I am interested. And I have been learning (a little). The church we've been going to in Macon has been participating in some of the Catholic traditions surrounding the season. Last week they had a service to burn the palm branches that would be used for tonight's Ash Wednesday service (the palm leaves are the ones that the children carry in on Palm Sunday the year before. They're dried and stored; typically until Fat Tuesday when the branches are burned before a traditional pancake dinner-that's one tradition I could get on board with!) I have never been to a either of these services before so I have really enjoyed learning a little more about the meaning behind the services and the season.
Another Lenten tradition I'm sort of familiar with is the idea of giving up something for Lent. Now, don't judge my theology (I haven't discussed this with my seminary trained sweetie so this is no reflection of him or his understanding of the season...just my own personal take on things) but from what I can tell the purpose of giving something up is to better understand the sacrifice involved with Easter. The sacrifice made by both the Father and the Son and the idea that by denying ourselves some kind of earthly pleasure we are making ourselves more attuned to and more in line with God's desires for our lives. Well, I don't really have anything meaningful to give up (and I know, I know, I don't HAVE to). I mean I could be one of those people who give up something like chocolate, or cokes, or tv but all of those seem to be kind of shallow and silly (not to mention a little self serving). So I thought instead maybe I would really make a point to ADD something during the next 40 days. I don't know, maybe this is a silly idea. I mean I already have a quiet time (at least I try to) and I already do Bible Studies and go to church and pray for my children BUT I'm just thinking maybe I could really commit to doing something (kinda sacrificial in that it will be time consuming) just for God and me. So when I happened upon this tonight I knew this was the thing for me to do.
Like I said, I already pray for my kids (what mom doesn't) but when I saw this about praying scripture over my kids at specific times during the day I just felt like I really needed to do this. The premise is that you pray for your kids at seven different times throughout the day:
when they wake up
when they are getting dressed
while they are eating
when they leave the house
while they are taking a bath
when they are going to bed
while they are sleeping
At each of these seven times throughout the day, I am committing to pray scripture over each of my girls by name (I have 3 of them-see I told you this would be time consuming)!!! I don't know that this is exactly what most people would consider sacrificial or even appropriate for this particular season BUT I figure it will be adding an additional 21 prayers to my day. What could be wrong about that. I firmly believe that a life spent in prayer is a life well lived AND that if we (I) am spending this much time in prayer each day I am going to become more and more aligned with God's will for me and my family!
Who knows...I love my brothers like they were my own I may just start praying over them as well! I do believe that if we all spent as much time in prayer as we do worrying, or gossiping or chit chatting idly our world would be in much better shape!