Please don't ask me what I'm giving up.

It's Ash Wednesday and Lent is upon us.

Sarah keeps asking me what I'm giving up for Lent.  I have given her several vague answers but nothing concrete because, honestly, I feel like ever since we received Rebecca's diagnosis, I've been living Lent. I'm not sure I could pray any harder, or sacrifice anything else, or being any more charitable than I have been.

I received this in an email from Jenny in response to a comment I left on her blog:

My spiritual director told a friend of ours who lost a baby girl at birth that sometimes Lent comes to us in our circumstances, and that we needn't add additional suffering where there is already plenty. I remember her focus for that Lent was to try to be at peace and to ask God for rest and healing for her broken heart. I know that she tried so hard to rest in the cross she had been asked to carry, but what a lot to ask of a mother. Then again, He asked a lot of his own mother during Lent, too.

How beautiful is that?  

So, this Lent, I will be trying to rest in the cross that I've been asked to carry and while I'm doing it, I will be thinking of Mary and the cross she had to bear.

And I'll be eating chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.