Notice

Every year when Fat Tuesday rolls around, I decide I’m going to do Lent right. There’s always a brief window — usually while holding a paczki — where I become extremely optimistic about my future holiness. I am going to give up something that will make me a better person after 40 days is over…
I’ve given up soda (Dr. Pepper is my fave and still a treat!). I’ve given up chocolates and dessert. I’ve given up coffee (the Lord and I both know that one was never sustainable). I once gave up buying clothes and gave something away every day. I’ve tried the rosary. I’ve tried daily Bible reading. I’ve tried structure and discipline and holy intentions.
And some years it stuck. Most years it… didn’t. Turns out self-improvement and I have a complicated relationship.
Those who know me also know I’m not really a “church” or organized-religion person in the traditional sense. But my faith runs deep. My belief in God and Jesus is steady and personal, and I pray every day. The Memorare is one that is more like a mantra and has become the prayer I fall back on when I don’t have words of my own – especially on the days when my prayers sound less like poetry and more like, “Okay… now what?”
This year I’m not feeling any call to heroic deprivation. Honestly, I could use all the desserts…. eating my feelings has been my go-to lately, and at this point the desserts and I are in a committed relationship.
So this Lent I’m not giving up small pleasures in hopes that suffering will magically reorder my soul. This year I’m giving up the things that are actually stealing my peace.
I’m giving up pretending I am a person who can successfully give up something like food or shopping for 40 days. Growth starts with honesty. I’m giving up rehearsing old resentments….. the ones I polish and revisit like they’re part of my personality. The stories I tell myself about other people, and the even harsher ones I tell myself.
I’m giving up the voice in my head that still thinks I should be a past version of me if I just try hard enough. I am giving up the lies I have told myself for years about who and what I deserve. I’m giving up expecting immediate text responses from my kids (this may be the holiest sacrifice of all… and also the least successful). I’m giving up believing the internet is an accurate representation of the world. It isn’t. It’s an algorithm, not reality – and definitely not a spiritual director.
Mostly, I’m giving up control – the exhausting illusion that if I monitor everything closely enough, worry hard enough, and plan carefully enough, I can keep life neat, predictable, and according to my own plans. Life, as it turns out, has never once agreed to that arrangement, no matter how convincing my spreadsheets were.
So instead of subtraction or even addition, this year I’m choosing attention.
For over a year I posted every single week…… seven moments of joy from the previous week. One photo for each day. One small moment of beauty at a time. And then life got heavy. Grief, responsibility, noise, fear, logistics. Noticing got replaced with surviving…… and surviving doesn’t leave much room for wonder.
So I’m going back.
From Ash Wednesday forward, I’m keeping a daily practice of deliberately looking for what is still good. Each day I’ll share one small thing – a photo of something I find beautiful, a kind interaction with a stranger, a sentence someone said that mattered, or one honest gratitude from the day.
Nothing curated. Nothing inspirational or poster perfect. Just real evidence that goodness still exists right here, right now.
Because social media….. and honestly the world lately …. trains our brains to scan for danger. For outrage. For proof everything is broken. But God is rarely found in the shouting. God shows up in the ordinary. Jesus himself saw straight through the ugliness of humanity to the beautiful parts. He sat with the outcasts, forgave the mess, loved people anyway. I mean… the man literally died for us and for the sins of the world. That kind of love isn’t loud. It’s steady, present, and usually happening in small moments we almost miss because of the chaos around us.
Sunrise peaking through the buildings. Someone holding a door. A laugh you didn’t expect. The dog excitedly waiting for you to arrive home. The moment your mind finally goes quiet and you just smile…..usually when you weren’t even trying.
I’m not pretending life is easy. I’m not ignoring the steady stream of news. I am still grieving. I’m just refusing to miss beauty while pain and ugliness exist. Holiness, at least for me this year, might look less like discipline and more like paying attention.
This Lent I’m giving up the constant analysis, the doom-scrolling, the need to fix every outcome. And instead, I’m going to look for the goodness and presence of God.
One ordinary day at a time. One ordinary moment at a time.
If you need that too, I would love it if you would join me. It would genuinely bring me joy to see what brings you joy – what goodness you notice in the world, because most of us have no trouble agreeing on what makes us angry or frustrated. Maybe we can practice agreeing on the good, too.
Maybe none of us will emerge dramatically transformed but maybe we’ll notice more goodness, carry a little more peace, and arrive at Easter ready to celebrate with real joy when He is risen…
the kind of joy that feels earned because we actually learned to see it.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace