An E for Effort

Yummy chocolate See's bunny found here. Wonder why the ears really do taste best?

So. Today is Saturday, just one day before Easter Sunday. Which means that Lent is, for all practical purposes, over. When I was a kid, it was the day that my siblings and I would pester my Mom to allow us to dive into the stash of candy that we had saved over the previous forty days since giving up candy was about as creative as a childhood me ever got regarding a Lenten practice.

Mom refused, every time. She insisted that, "If you kids could wait for all of Lent then you can wait until Easter morning. You can put your saved up candy into your Easter basket to add to whatever the Bunny brought you."

She didn't negotiate.

My self-imposed task for this Lent was to try to be a kinder individual, which is hardly a tangible thing. Kindness isn't something that one can collect in a plastic bag in one's bedroom closet for forty days and then dump into your Sunday morning Easter basket. It's hard to measure my success in being a more kind individual ever since Ash Wednesday.

But I have tried, really I have. I think that if someone were paying attention there would be very little observable changes in my behavior, still I have been trying. I think the proof of my limited successes is evident not in what I did or said; but rather what I didn't do. Or say.

(Oh, would you just quit laughing, Terese! I'm trying to be serious here.)

Yeah. I've tried hard to bite my tongue and censor my thoughts, which is a tall order for Ms. Blabbermouth me. And I can't say that I've been completely able to do that, but I made a serious effort. I tried really hard.

And that, I think, is what Lent is really all about.

Now bring on the chocolate bunnies!