Great Lenten Experiment 2010

Do you remember last year when I tried to limit my computer time to 30 minutes per day during Lent? I had some good moments and some bad but -- all in all -- it was interesting. So, I have been thinking about what I might do to honor Lent this season and I am thinking of (drum roll) . . .

Getting up in the morning.

Now, if you have ever had to deal with me before 10 a.m., or seen my face when you suggested we leave for somewhere at 8 a.m., or tried to schedule me for an appointment "first thing in the morning," you will know I'm not really a rise and shine kind of gal. I know that several of you are up and at 'em, exercised, breakfasted, dressed and email answered before I even stumble into the kitchen feeling for the coffee pot. Grabbing the day by it's pre-dawn horns has not been my mode of operation.

BUT, if you are a regular reader, you may also know I am a student of the Bible and there is one verse that torments me every time I read it.

Turn with me to Proverbs 31. (Set your Bible on its spine and find the middle. Now go a little bit right. There you are. Chapter 31 is at the end.)

Here in Proverbs 31 King Solomon is handing out advice about finding the right kind of woman to marry. And let me tell you she is Super Woman. Honestly, I don't know when she has time to go to the bathroom and/or read a magazine, but there she is nevertheless, and I think we have to take her seriously.

So there we are reading along about how she cooks and sews and plants her own garden and sells her cloth through her etsy account, when we come upon the verse that hangs over my head.

:15 She gets up while it is still dark;

That's right. She gets up while it is still dark. Even here in Central Minnesota where the days are short and the summer even shorter, I do not get up while it is still dark. I amembarrassed to tell you that many days I am the last one up.

I have a couple of weeks to think about this, to think about the challenge and the reward, to mull over those five little words: while it is still dark. This one's not going to be easy.