Ash Wednesday

Jesus, I will ponder now

On Your holy passion;

With Your Spirit me endow

For such meditation,

Grant that I in love and faith

May the image cherish

Of Your suffering, pain, and death

That I may not perish. (LSB 440:1)

Ash Wednesday begins the holy season of prayerful and penitential reflection. We especially direct our attention to the holy sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a time of special devotion and humble repentance. Let us pray that our Father will bless this Lententide for us so that we might come to Easter with glad hearts. (HT: Rev. Scott Murray's daily e-mail)

We can draw life and hope from the Word. Last year I attempted to read "Little Book of Joy" by Rev. Harrison and meditate on the Word with the "plan" at the end of the book for the 90 days of Joy after Joy. Circumstances in our life made it so I didn't finish the 90 days. I am going to try again this year. Anyone want to join me? I'm going to add this in, not give up anything for Lent this year.

In homeschool and in family devotions we don't do anything different for Lent. We continue to have our regular family devotions, usually at lunch time. We do discontinue lighting the white candle of Christmas/Epiphany. The Lambs take turns putting the candle out so they miss the candle during Lent. We do attend all the Lent midweek and Holy Week services offered at our churches. We also wait until the day before Easter to put up any Easter decorations (bunnies, eggs, etc.) and dye Easter eggs. We wait until after Easter to make special Easter treats like cut out cookies. We plan to make Lent a more prayerful and penitential time as the Lambs get older, but we are not doing that as they are young. For now it is enough to see purple paraments on the altar and hear different liturgy and hymns during Lent at church.