Living Lent

"Fix these words of mine in your hearts, and minds....teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deut. 11: 18-19)
I awoke yesterday with this verse in my head at 6AM. Two minutes later there was a voice by my bedside, "Do you think the ark went to Heaven with Noah?" Hmmmm could I in good conscience pretend slumber? No. So Rowan got into bed with me and we thrashed out the details of Heaven, Noah, arks, animals, and God (Who does indeed have a sense of humor).
My first exposure to lent as a child was through a Catholic friend ("The main difference between you and me is that I get to drink wine at communion and you don't"). She said you had to give something up for forty days and her mommy gave up sugar and was grumpy and her dad gave up creamer and was even more grumpy and she couldn't have any gum for another two weeks! Oh...I see...kinda?
Now, I understand that lent goes deeper than creamer and grumpiness, deeper even than giving something up. But the misconception persists so I swung the other way and added something.
I decided to try and live Deut. 11:18-19. This should be a given, but unfortunately, it often gets swept under the rug of busyness. So I've made a concentrated effort this lent to talk Jesus. Here are some of the issues that have been revealed: One of my children thought that Jesus didn't really die but only pretended. One of my children asserted that he could jump the chasm of sin and get to Heaven on his own. And one of the parents (me) were deeply convicted about how often she glibly dishes out the Bible at meals and then does just what she feels like in between.

Jesus is on the tongue and in the heart and the metamorphis is somehow more visual when it's the fore-front of our days. True, we may only be changing from a grub to a bigger grub (no butterflies in sight yet) but we are stretching and talking and learning from each other. ("If God didn't die, how did He get to Heaven?")

So lent is teaching me to know and love Jesus more and to share that as a family and I don't even have to give up tea! (See me shudder!)