March 2026 – Storytelling at the Library – Theme: Renewal
Every late Winter into early Spring I like to torture myself a little bit. It’s not that I’m a masochist. It’s that I’m Catholic.
Every Lent (the period of repentance and preparation) leading up to Easter (the time celebrating Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead), I try to change my life in somewhat radical ways.
I have to do this because after Easter I tend to venture a bit off of God’s path and I need Lent to guide me back from the wild woods of life.
As I journey along I often find a lot of weeds along my path that I myself have put there. I get the scythe out; hacking to clear them all away. My efforts leave me exhausted, but a happy exhausted.
Lent is an opportunity to right-side my upside-down ship – to undergo a new renewal anew each year – as I work to be better, do better.
Now people do Lent. But I really DO Lent. My saying is that if I make it thru Lent and I don’t quit my job then you can be sure I’ll be in that job for another year.
I dive “all in” to the three tenets of Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, and uproot things in my life that have taken too much hold.
I watch too much TV. I give up TV for Lent.
I waste too much time online shopping –or at least browser window shopping– I give it up… eh, on Sundays.
My usual daily existential crisis of “What am I supposed to be doing with my life?” goes into overdrive – so I add a devotional.
It’s 2015. Nora, my colicky toddler, has somewhat upended my life, but Lent rolls around and in scything and burning off all that is old and bad I discover that I’ve been a bit “meh” in my relationship with God.
So I go headfirst into Lent – determined to renew my relationship with God, colicky toddler or not.
I read the daily mass readings and reflections.
I attend daily mass as often as I can.
I watch a daily online Lenten video series.
I limit my browser window shopping.
And at the end of each exhausting day I write a reflection and share it on my sister’s blog.
Needless to say I am challenged; forced to not only cut the weeds, but to plant seeds and grow better plants. I lean on God’s word, the words of smart-spiritual people, and do things to get outside of myself and gain better perspective.
I inch along.
It’s Lent 2016 and I start my own blog – so as to not inundate my sister’s blog as I strive against the “meh” and into my crazy notion of giving God every “yes” I can at every opportunity I can. Every opportunity. Even ones I probably just imagine because, “Am I being tested?”.
Imagine a lazy Sunday stroll in a daisy-filled meadow on a sunny day. That was not my Lent. I beat myself down to the bone, breaking as many of my bones as I can –figuratively speaking of course. But I escape Lent still in my job, safe for another year.
Jump to 2021, it’s late winter then early Spring, I’m knee-deep into Lent, and my gestating daughter Ruthie is waiting to pick her birthday (which she finally gets around to on April 20th). I’ve been struggling with deciding whether or not I keep working or become a stay-at-home mom. I put it to prayer 24/7 and go in so many maddening decisionless-circles I am dizzy.
I cannot discern which path to take, despite diving hard into Lent with a laser focus of what I need to definitely “get out of” Lent this year:
Do I stay on my work path; get out of Lent without quitting my job and let mom-hood and work-hood just work out like it has with Nora?
Or can I actually trust God, be brave and choose the hard thing. The thing I’ve always wanted, especially during the past 6 years of infertility struggles, but when it actually comes time to commit to it I am so scared I want to run off and hide in the woods.
But instead of running away I cut a weed from my path.
Easter Sunday is April 4th. But on March 4th I hand in my resignation letter, I let my boss know that April 9th will be my last day of work -well, at least the kind I get paid for doing.
I jump headfirst into the biggest-trusting “yes” God has been building me up for and asking me to give. I fall forward and do my best to not look back. In that “trust fall” God catches me, he carries me and guides me along His path.
I continue walking in trust and He leads me to my daughter Mabel in January 2023 – notably born a few months before the start of Lent – which allows me to make an ‘easy’ Lenten resolution of simply: “Keep the baby alive”.
I walk along, keeping up with the weeds as they pop up instead of putting off the task. Grant it, there are now more toys and clothes –and every little thing that should probably be in a box or drawer somewhere- strewn about the path, but I finally take notice that more and more flowers seem to be appearing along my way.
It’s 2026, Winter is ending and Spring is approaching. I’m continuing to pull up the bad roots when I find them. I’m continuing to strive to keep all the “meh” behind me and lean into the “yes”. I’m continuing to experience “a new renewal anew” in body, mind, heart, and soul – but this time without the 24/7 torture of “What does God want me to be doing with my life?”. Because I can see the beautiful path God has me on and best of all I get to share it and grow in it with my husband Ryan and our three beautiful wildflower daughters.
Give God Your Yes 