My Sacrifice

I'm choosing not to blog about Valentine's day today, though I do like the celebration of love and chocolate... But I would rather talk about myself  ;)

Lent is upon us, as preparation for Easter. It's known as a time to cleanse and refocus and prepare our hearts for celebrating Christ rising again. It really is a great time of year. When I was growing up my siblings and I would give something up for roughly 40 days, from Ash Wednesday to Easter morning. It was usually food, like candy or pop. But as I got older (and wiser.. ha) I started to choose harder things to sacrifice, like computer time or TV. And I think it was important to sacrifice something that I would encounter on a daily basis, or desire on a daily basis because the idea was to revert the desire of wanting that thing to thinking of God, so he would take the place of that thing. And I'm not sure why I liked doing it so much, partly the challenge I think, but maybe because thinking about God more often was actually satisfying and healing, and became almost natural by the end of 40 days.

And I never thought it was weird that chocolate led me to God on a daily basis. Lol.

Well on Ash Wednesday this year, I gave up my iPhone. Everything about it except the time feature and the phone feature, and only the phone part if really necessary.  I'm at home most of the time so our home phone has been used a lot more so far. But already I am struck by how many times (even in an hour) that I have the urge to find it, check my email, check facebook, check the weather, read the news, check my email, play a game, make a list, text someone, did I say check my email?
It's ridiculous.
And I have been spending obscene amounts of time on our computer the past two days, but I know that will diminish after the transition. It hasn't been easy to sit at a computer with an almost 2yr old around, so I've noticed.

So far, these are the pro's of not using:
- Less phone in hand action
- Not obsessing over checking email
- Less scrolling and scrolling and scrolling
- No taking picture or videos of everything I see on a minute basis (they're usually not good anyway)
- I will be saving money this month on our phone bill
- There are probably more I can't think of
- I like the iPhone thoughts reverting to God :)

And the con's:
- I can't read the morning news with breakfast
- I have to make lists of pieces of paper (making a list you can just delete later is great!)
- Checking and replying to emails can only be done once or twice daily
- It's sometimes inconvenient to call instead of text someone
- I've lost a quick, smart map in the car
- I like texting, and I'm missing that already

So, it will be a long 38 more days, but I'm looking forward to missing it less and less as time goes on.
I don't actually know where it is right now. That's a good start! Haha.