My Lent Promise

Lent 2019 1 Minute

Do you make a Lent Promise? It’s something I’ve done all my life and don’t intend stopping anytime soon. As a child I tried all the usual things – mostly giving up sweets if I remember rightly. I suspect I sneaked some into my room anyway, as if cheating everyone else was the point of it all!

Lent pic

Those sort of promises carried on into adulthood. Nothing wrong with giving things up. I once gave up caffeine and had the most horrendous headache for the first few days!

I realised quite late on that giving things up really only helped myself. I might be healthier, even slimmer, but I hadn’t affected anyone else. I know that some people give up something important to them, like booze, and give the money saved to charity but as I don’t drink much, gamble or smoke at all or have sugar in my hot drinks that hasn’t really worked for me. (How boring is this woman?)

In more recent years then, I have tried to find something a little more ‘worthy’ with which to challenge myself. I quite often try to find one item per day to donate to the charity shop, I have been to church more often, made weekly donations to charity and gone meat-free.

This year, starting on Ash Wednesday on 6 March I am aiming to work on an item of ethical campaigning every day in Lent. This could be a letter to a company asking about their packaging, raising a petition, posting on social media or emailing individuals. Any ideas will be gratefully received!

I may or may not be successful – I may fall short of the 40 tasks required or I may not persuade anybody to act at all but at least I will have tried.

Are you making a Lent Promise this year?

Published by alisonspurrell

I am a woman of a certain age (not 60 yet!) who lives in Bristol. I’ve lived almost my whole life in Bristol, with a short sojourn in Cornwall in my teens. I am trying to lead my life in an ethical way in all areas and hope to explore what this means. I have four passions and several interests so I hope I will have plenty to write about. My passions are my family, knitting, cricket and St Peter’s Hospice. My other interests are volunteering, the environment, reading, TV, films & theatre, fundraising, chronic fatigue, mental health and eating. My non-interests are animals, housework, football, rugby and cooking. I come from a family of four – two sisters and a brother. Our parents dies a few years ago. I am married to my soulmate Colin, an amazing man who tolerates my funny ways and supports me in everything I do. We have three children and two wonderful granddaughters. I am so proud of my family – we must have done something right as they are all good people. I have two sons-in-law who I love like my own and together we all make up a family unit where everyone loves and respects everyone else. I am a total hypochondriac but do have some genuine problems, some of which I may talk about at a later date. At the moment I am overweight and have just started to eat more healthily, which I think is the answer to weight loss. We were on holiday last week and enjoyed puddings and cakes every day. I work part-time and Colin is recently retired. This means that we have been able to spend much more time together doing some of the things we’ve been meaning to do – some planned and some spontaneous. I love this period of my life – I just wish I had the energy to match the time and the opportunities available!

Published

2 thoughts on “My Lent Promise”

  1. Good idea about Lent; as I am leading our church service on the first Sunday of Lent I will suggest your ideas to our church members. Thanks!

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