Day 3: Struggling for definition

Usually, I give up concrete things and pick up concrete disciplines for Lent. I've given up my to-do list, prepackaged foods, and leaven as examples. Each somehow created a gap in my life to be filled by the Spirit drawing me to God in unexpected ways. In choosing a discipline, I try to think about what am I leaning on and then remove it forcing me to lean on God.

This year, as I've mentioned I feel the need to give up time. To trust God with the hours of the day that I am given and to make time to listen to God's quiet voice. I am struggling a bit with what that means. Does it mean that regardless of the day I set a dedicated period of time - 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours to - to spiritual practice? Does it mean I take on a set of practices that take time every day and complete them - like writing this blog, praying, reading? Do I get involved with some church or community spiritual practice that creates a new demand on my time? Do I just simply spend my days awake and alert and be willing to respond to God when God shows up?

I think about if I were to prioritize a different relationship and put direct effort into it over the course of time, what would it look like? Say I wanted to get closer to my mother or build my marriage or engage with my kids. There would be an element of dedicated time -- a phone call or eating together every day. There would be an element of responding to them when they called me. There would probably be an element of doing something together in common.

It would be easy to say for these 40 days I will drop everything else and focus on connecting to God. Let's do a retreat somewhere in the mountain and my life will just "be there" when I get back. But I know that the call for this time is to make space for God while still truly pursuing the other calls in my life - to be a good mother and wife and to support this start-up that has potential to bring healing in to countless lives. So I struggle on...