Lenten Season

There are two things I decided to do for Lent this year. Give up Facebook with the exception of Sundays (I heard Catholics get an off day for Sunday) and to pray the rosary everyday. The rosary is my favorite way to pray and the Blessed Mother is who I hold deeply within my heart. It maybe I learned to pray to the Blessed Mother by my own grandparents. My grandfather prayed to her on a daily basis and my grandmother prayed the rosary twice a day on her knees at 10a then again at 3p. I knew I could not interrupt my grandmother during those two times because to pray the rosary was a priority to her and we as her family respected that. My grandparents had an alter in their home where they prayed and when my grandmother died after a two year battle with Lymphoma, she was laid out in church and she looked beautiful for a person who suffered with cancer. I recall the priest kneeling several times at her casket and the funeral mass was filled with visiting priests and nuns.


Or maybe I favor the rosary and the Blessed Mother because I am a mother myself who has agonized over her own children.


I do not know anyone who has had the same struggles with their kids as I had. I am sure they exist however I do not know any and that fact itself is difficult because it makes one feel very alone and there is so much effort in appearing "normal" which is pretty exhausting.


Giving up Facebook is harder than I thought. I guess I will be doing a lot of writing on this site, reading or other such hobbies. Reframing from checking up on friends via Facebook is going to be a challenge not to mention the few games I enjoy playing. This will be a test in self-discipline. A real test in self-discipline.


I am hoping I come away from this Lenten Season more spiritually grounded and perhaps a bit calmer within.


In the meantime, this is my treatment team at work on the day they brought me Girl Scout Cookies and sang Happy Birthday. I am 57 this year. Ten years until I retire.