Lent

I'm not Catholic, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I love the idea of Lent. (Mormonism just doesn't have enough rules of it's own, dontcha know.) I love the idea of sacrificing something to try and understand what Jesus sacrificed and a measure of His pain. I love the idea of giving up my "favorite sins" to know Him better and I love the idea of laying down something I love so that Easter Sunday is that much sweeter when I get to enjoy it again.

This year I actually prayed and pondered the matter (I have been known to randomly pull things out of my butt just to have something to give up, so this is definitely a step in the right direction.) and came to the conclusion that I really needed to give up TV altogether. Just for Lent. Completely excluding any time I spend with my kids watching TV. The real aim was to give up my evening TV time in hopes that I would spend more time studying scriptures, etc.

I also gave up reading anything other than my scriptures. No books. No magazines. And (as of today because I suddenly realized that they should probably be included) blogs. Again, with the intent that I would spend more time communing with God and strengthening those habits.

Everything was going well (excluding the blog reading, which I only recently realized) until I got sick. Fever, miserable, lie on the couch and not move sick. I'm sure that someone better than I would have used this time to really talk with God and praise Him even in her trials (I did do a bit of that) but I mainly watched a lot of TV. A lot. As in I acted more like my 12 year old when sick and completely used it as an excuse not to sleep and rest but to watch lots of TV and catch up on everything I hadn't been watching for the previous two weeks.

But everything's back on track.

Sorta.

I've learned that giving up TV while trying to exercise actually works as a deterrent to exercise as TV watching is that carrot that helps me win that daily battle over "to workout or not to workout," and since this seems counter to my improved health goals that God and I have been working on, I'm letting it slide.

I've learned that I rationalize. Sometimes, I rationalize a lot. I may be watching less TV as a whole, but I can promise you that my children are watching more in the evenings so that I can watch and have it be "allowed."

I'm trying to learn how to walk the line between following the commandments (and any extra odd covenants I make with God, like, oh, LENT) with exactness (thinking - the people of Ammon) and zeal and yet not being Pharisaical. It's hard to know where that line is because (as noted above) I am prone to rationalization and laziness and yet also at times (contradictorily) I am too hard on myself.

Let me know if you have it figured out.