Happy Easter

The end of Lent is tomorrow, Easter Day. For forty days, I've given up eating meat, chocolate (and any kind of dessert--ice cream, cake, pies, candy) and chips. And as the temptation started to set in, basically two weeks into the forty days, I started to ponder the reason behind giving up something for Lent.

I was taught as a youngster that it was a form of sacrifice, something that we did to show our love to the Lord. However, as I have grown, I know that a relationship with God isn't something that is shown in a forty day period. It's an ongoing, growing and evolving thing. A younger cousin of mine recently said that instead of giving up something, he wanted to do something more active. He volunteered for a local charity or he gave some time to a shelter of some sort.

To me this made more sense. Why give up something that I was going to indulge in once the forty days was over. I am probably just rationalizing just a few hours before I go into a meat, chip and chocolate induced coma state. But next year, I think that actively giving to a charitable organization or shelter would be more productive.

For now, I'm just counting down to the hour that I can eat a steak (wrapped in bacon, topped with crumbled meat), have some nachos for an appetizer and have a chocolate cake for dessert.