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Lent 2026, what do you have in store for me?
I’ve been praying to our Lord to tell me what it is that He would like for me to do in this season, and as scripture tells us in Matthew 7:7, He has provided.
He has called me to a book study with a wonderful group of women that I volunteer with a youth group. We are reading “The Way of Trust and Love” by Jacques Phillippe. He has also called me to slow down with social media and “doomscrolling.” He has called me to spend this time I would normally waste on my phone to study scripture more.
This call to study scripture more started before lent. Thanks be ALL to God, His word is getting to me in a new way. For years now I’ve started my mornings by opening up the Laudate app on my phone and checking out the daily readings and thought it was “enough” of the bible for me. I now realize how silly that thought was. (Not that it isn’t a wonderful place to start – but there never really is “enough” scripture, is there?)
Recently Sirach 15:15-20 was one of the daily readings. It was so good, I had to read it again. And then again. And then I wrote it down, letting the words seep further into my brain as I pressed pen to paper.
Words in this passage I have heard said before in different ways- for example as an answer to non-believers when one asks “why would a loving God send someone to Hell?”. A Christian may reply with “He doesn’t – we choose that ourselves.” This scripture in Sirach reminds us of our choices.
Fire or water. Life or death. WE get to choose.
We underestimate the weight of these gifts that God has given us in our free will. And forget that the only control we have in life is SELF-control. St. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”
People today either forget or choose not to use their self-control. But the word assures us that God has given this to us.
I choose life. I choose Him who “understands every human deed.” The one who made me knows me best and I want nothing less than Him.
I choose to stretch out my hand to the water.
This lent, I believe I can use my God-given free will and my God-given self control to choose life over death, every day. Let us all use these gifts to grow closer to our loving creator.
Christy is a published author of three fiction novels. She converted to the faith in 2006 on the base chapel of NAS Corpus Christi, where she was stationed at the time while serving in the U.S. Navy. She is a married mother of six and works full time for the pro-life non-profit Prolove Ministries.
