Happy Ash Wednesday everyone!

Well, if you observe it anyway… and by ‘it’ I mean Lent.  This isn’t something I’ve normally done in the past, because as far as I know my branch of church doesn’t observe it and I find that weird.

Lent is the time when we give up something for 40 days in honor of the huge sacrifice that Jesus made when He gave His life for our sins.  We can obviously never make a sacrifice that incredible, but in a way of showing our thankfulness for Jesus’ sacrifice the least we can do is give up something that’s a part of our lives for 40 days.

(And for those who do not know the significance of 40 days, it’s in relation to the 40 days and nights Jesus spent on His own fasting from food.)

So in my life I’ve never really observed Lent, but this year I’m changing that.  I wanted to give up something that would be a sacrifice, but not such a huge change that I’ll be doomed to fail because I’m only human.  One way to do that is to give up something in my diet – and that something is meat.

Now I don’t consider myself that much of a meat person because I really don’t eat it too often… or if I do I don’t notice it.  I guess I should say that I don’t really eat red meat that often, but I’ll eat chicken and turkey for days and not get sick of it.  But my mom and I both are giving up all meat for Lent.

All. Of. It.

I think what I’m going to have the hardest time resisting is having chicken in my salad at Panera as well as hot wings because I’m a huge sucker for hot wings.  Chicken is literally my weakness when it comes to meat.  When we went to North Carolina two years ago for my cousin’s wedding I literally had chicken in one of my meals every single day… including the wedding.  So if anything is going to be the hardest for me during these 40 days, it’s going to be resisting a meal with chicken in it.

The best way to get through it though is to remember the sacrifice Christ gave for us.  I mean, if He can give up His life for us then I can certainly give up meat (*cough*chicken*cough*) for a measly 40 days.  So with that, I begin my short-lived vegetarian diet from now until Easter.

Are you giving up anything for Lent?