And this is Lent: almsgiving. Our hearts and lives are awakened by the brilliant beauty of unsolicited generous love. God's self-giving fills our world with lavish flowers and seashore, redwoods and waterfalls~ all for our sheer pleasure. Perhaps Lent's love is to give and give and give until another knows the love of God in you and for them.
My attitudes need adjusting for my habits wreck havoc on this call to holiness.
God speaks so softly:
"My child, Let Me hold you in My love and wash you clean of your willful pride and harsh judgements, these are not helpful, they hinder My ways in you. Trust My heart, Child. I am ever-loving and I long to touch your soul with My tender mercy. What you see is your sin; I see My Son. You see winter cloaking your heart in cold; I see the warmth of My love melting your soul's stubbornness."
If I stand in the light of His face, the gaze of His grace, sin's hold on me is undone and I am on my way to Easter. I cannot measure the mountains of mercy, the unbounded joy of God's heart as I take tentative steps in Lent, loosening the grip of sin with the power of His Cross. I choose how to see the world around me; in deepest darkest storm I call to mind, and therefore have hope, that His steadfast love never ceases. Lifting my eyes to the hills, I rest and trust in a love that changes me as Lent's crashing waves of mercy remake me.
Medicine from Sacred Writings:
"There is need of much almsgiving; for this it is which especially gives strength to the medicine of repentance... but let us all humble our own souls be almsgiving and forgiving our neighbor's trespasses, by not remembering injuries, not avenging ourselves."
John Chrysostom Fourth Century
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